Today, I was reminded of this passage from Jonathan Fields’ book ‘Uncertainty’:

In art, business, and entrepreneurship, there is no coasting. There is no neutral. No sideways. It’s a myth, an illusion. There’s only up or down. Leading or trailing.

Which means that if you’re teetering on the edige of happiness, health, liquidity, and contentment now and if you’re stuck in a “do nothing to change” scenario, then ten, twenty, or thirty years from now, your creative life, business, and your body of work will likely be somewhere between really unpleasant and really dead.

Let’s expand this idea out into your role as the creator of your life. If you leave key parts of your life unaddressed over time, here’s what’s likely to happen:

• Nagging pain becomes chronic, acute and debilitating
• Unrewarding work becomes soulless, life-sucking agony
• Passable health becomes obesity, disease, and, for many, early death
• Relationships that are unattended to become estranged, angry, bitter, dysfunctional, and nonexistent
• Your currently “passable” life becomes increasingly painful as you enter the long, slow slide toward death

That passage was like a kick up the arse, a slap across the face and shot of reality to the brain.

(actually, the title should read “Nothing improves unless you change it”. Decline and decay are the natural order of things)