The points of no return in life
Will you retreat to safety or forge ahead in pursuit of the truth that frightens you?
You can also listen to this essay here.
Imagine you’re alone on a ship crossing an ocean on your way to a foreign land. You’ve chosen to embark on this journey because truth exists on the other side. This truth you seek is one that frightens you — you’ve been afraid of it all your life — but have come to a point when you can no longer continue avoiding it.
You must face this truth, no matter how much it terrifies you.
You have only enough food, water, medicine, etc. for a one-way journey. As such, if you have second thoughts and want to head back home to safety, you can only do so before you reach the midpoint of your journey. Once you cross the midpoint, you are committed.
In story structure, what I’ve just described is sometimes called the “point of no return.” Like in the ship analogy, it typically happens around the middle of the story, and represents the point at which the protagonist must decide whether to retreat in their journey or commit to seeing it through to the end. Sometimes the point of no return is literal. Other times, it’s metaphorical or psychological.
Here are few examples of points of no return in popular films and books:
In the film Working Girl, the point of no return is when Tess, a lowly secretary, is presented with the opportunity to impersonate an executive in pursuit of her goals. If she chooses to, she can’t go back. If she chooses not to, she simply returns to her normal life unchanged.
In Misery by Stephen King, the point of no return is when Annie deliberately injures Paul, thus revealing that she has no intention of letting him go. You might think, but Paul has no choice in the matter? While that’s true of his physical predicament, internally he has a choice to make: sit by passively in the hopes he’ll survive long enough to be rescued, or take matters into his own hands and plot a way to kill his captor.
In The Matrix, the point of no return is presented to the protagonist in very clear terms: take the blue pill and return to normal life or take the red pill and face the terrifying truth that we’re all living in a simulation.
In stories, while the protagonist might linger in their decision to either cross or turn back from the point of no return, they always end up forging ahead. Otherwise, there’d be no story.
In life, it’s a whole other story.
Our choices are never that simple
There are those points of no return in life that are more or less clearcut. The choice to have a child, or get married, or move to another city or country.
But unfortunately most of them are elusive or ambiguous points of no return, ones we spend our lives approaching in varying degrees of awareness. These are our deep-seated fears or worries or uncertainties that we haven’t clearly mapped out for ourselves — we don’t quite know how to get to that point of no return, or even that we’re on a journey in the first place.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay about my problems with social anxiety and a recent spell of panic attacks, which seem to have been related in some way. Here’s the link in case you’re interested. As I continue to work through what’s “going on” inside my mind to cause these things, this week I was struck with a realization that it may have something to do with a point of no return I’m stuck at.
But before I explain more about that, I want to unpack a little more of the story structure that leads up to and follows the point of no return, because it reveals something to me about why I’ve become stuck in my journey as it relates to this particular area of my life.
“Fun and games” and “bad guys close in”
Returning to our ship crossing an ocean thought experiment, consider how your experience differs on either side of the point of no return. While you will, indeed, feel fear or uncertainty during the entirety of your journey — because you don’t know what awaits you on the other side — the fear takes on new meaning after you cross that point of no return and can no longer return to the life you knew before.
In the storytelling structure I use to plot my novels — called the “Save the Cat Beat Sheet” — the journey up until the point of no return is called “fun and games.” This is when the protagonist is learning the lay of the land and is pulled along by the thrill of adventure. Remember, they can always turn back at this point, so the stakes are lower.
Once the protagonist crosses that point of no return, the stakes change. This next phase of the story structure is called “bad guys close in.” The “bad guys” is just a playful way of describing the antagonist of the story — it could be literal bad guys, like it was in The Matrix, or the bad guys could be internal to the protagonist, like in the film Black Swan where the antagonist is the madness experienced by the protagonist.
In either case, the bad guys are closing in because the protagonist is now more vulnerable, given they can’t retreat back to safety.
I lay all of this out for you to really hit home how that point of no return is difficult to cross in life. In fact, we can spend years approaching it and even more years avoiding it. Think of people in your life who never want to grow up, or remain stuck in a difficult situation for years — a job or a relationship, for example. Think of how it plays out in your own life. What points of no return are you afraid to cross?
The point of no return I’m approaching
As I continue to work through whatever tangle of neurons that’s got me having panic attacks in seemingly random situations, I’ve begun to home in on one similarity between all of them:
They seem to be moments when I feel trapped in place and I don’t have full control over my body.
The two scenarios I mentioned that triggered a panic attack in my previous essay were a client presentation (which makes perfect sense) and during a haircut (which makes no sense). These might seem opposite to each other, but one similarity exists: I can’t just get up and leave the situation. Well, I could technically get up and leave, but not without creating a fuss and embarrassing myself (and ending up with half a haircut). In a way, I’m locked into that moment.
In a way, I’m not in control in that moment.
This similarity exists in all the situations where my panic seems to erupt. They are all times when I can’t simply turn around in the ship and retreat to safety.
Now, you might be wondering, but what’s “unsafe” about these particular situations, enough to induce panic?
I’ve wondered this myself a million plus a million times.
But what I’m beginning to suspect, and what I’m slowing peeling back with the help of an analyst, is that I have some sort of trigger when it comes to control over myself. This need for control may have something to do with my adolescence, when something uncontrollable awakened inside me. Something that threatened to make everyone turn against me.
And that was realizing that I was gay.
My experience of that “awakening” was one of horror. I’m okay with it now, don’t worry. Everyone in my life is okay with it. But at the time, growing up in a small-town where gay was a dirty word, it felt like a monster was coming to life inside me. What that experience may have taught me is that losing control over my body is dangerous.
Losing control is the bad guys closing in on me.
When I step back and look at all the things in my life, I see that fear playing out in so many ways. Even in these essays I write, and my fiction, and my videos. You might think — but aren’t you putting yourself out there with all this stuff? Yes, of course I am, but only under my terms. Each piece that I put out there is tightly controlled by me. There is no winging it, or ad libbing, or capturing anything raw or unedited.
This isn’t to say that what I’m putting out there isn’t authentic or passionate or real. This is all very real to me. I’m baring my soul and heart to you.
But I never let go of the control I have over myself.
Doing so is the point of no return I’ve been afraid to cross for my whole life.
Letting curiosity take the wheel
I have not yet figured out exactly how to cross this point of no return. Or, perhaps I’m still afraid to. My urge is to map things out completely and clearly — like I’m doing now in this essay.
But I’m also suspecting that I may need to toss this map overboard and just wing it.
You may have something similar in your own life. It may manifest inside you in ways that are elusive or confusing. It can simply feel like an unanswered question in your mind, or a persistent urge to avoid something. But what that thing is, you might not know.
In situations like these, I’d urge you to tap into your curiosity. This force inside you is one that can help you overcome just about anything. Let curiosity be the guiding force that empowers you to throw caution to the wind. Let curiosity lead you past the point of no return in pursuit of the truth that frightens you, but which will change you in the way you need to be changed so you can advance on your journey through life.
Perhaps, most of all, invite someone onto that ship with you across the ocean — as I’m doing now by writing this essay.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
This week’s humour: death by advertising, a spider's tale, meet my new robot and learn how to tie a bowline (thanks Dad!).