They are always nearby. They are either traumatic or laborious, often both, but escape hatches always exist.
Sometimes the price is too high for that person to pay at that time. More often, though, people just believe the way to escape is not worth the risk — why jump into the lifeboat if the ship still floats?
Because a listing ship goes nowhere, that’s why. Owned by the currents and the wind, such a vessel is doomed to fatally falter at some point.
But hey, at least it’s not a lifeboat. Right? So we think. Until we figure out that we can control the course of a lifeboat if we’re the only one in it, while the barely floating ship is actually out to kill us. Then pushing off in a small, fragile boat on a large, ruthless ocean feels like freedom.
An escape hatch can be a tunnel out of a job, a lifeboat out of a relationship, a parachute jump out of any situation.
The one similarity of all escape hatches is that they must be chosen purposefully. Just as one never accidentally puts on a parachute, no one accidentally applies for a new job or accidentally moves out of the house.
There are no guarantees an escape hatch will save you, or even work when needed. After all, sometimes tunnels collapse and parachutes don’t open. Some people take that as reason enough to forego such risk and effort.
I am not one of them.
