In the short-term, the expectations you have pre-leap largely carry over post-leap.

Forgoing stability for the unknown is not limited to the lens of salaries and occupations. It applies to any situation where a gap exists between who you think you are today, and who you know you want to become.

Taking the leap is not some irrational act that is driven by the passions. When you understand the asymmetrical nature of manageable concerns vs. unimaginable benefits, taking the leap is no longer an emotional jump, but a logical next step toward the life you want to lead.

Life leaps come in varying distances.

But today, I want to argue for the rationality of taking the leap.

While you can easily predict the concerns of making any leap, there is no way to predict the numerous rewards that await you on the other side.

As long as that chief concern is one you think you can manage, the most rational thing to do is to actually make the jump. By not making that leap, you are voting to give up all unimaginable future rewards for a single concern you can predict and prepare for today.

When determining whether or not one takes a leap, there seem to be better reasons to not make that jump than to do so. After all, the justified mind is one that understands loss aversion – one that wouldn’t want to trade the comfort and safety of the present moment for an uncertain and rocky future.

Oftentimes, taking the leap is framed as an irrational thing to do – something that plays more to the emotions than to reason. This is why when someone takes the leap in a professional setting, we dub this phenomenon as “following your passion” instead of “following your rationality.”