The thing about Jacob Manslow was that he was, in his opinion at least, a good man. Not great. Not perfect. But definitely a good man. One who didn't exactly live his life to the fullest, but lived it nonetheless.
Jacob knew that he wasn't perfect. In fact, he relished on it. He knew that there was a fine line in being excellent and being mundane and he rode it with all of his might. Any tilt in either direction would mean change and Jacob Manslow feared that above all else.
Change mean facing all the things that he deliberately swept under the rug. Change meant finally facing his wife's criticisms. His children's doubts. His boss' bewilderment as to why he had not been promoted in the twelve years that he'd work for Sanson and Co. Change, in short, meant that he finally had to start living the lone life that he had been given.
Jacob wasn't a bad man. He wasn't great, or perfect, or extraordinary. He would never, in his opinion, raise to the summits of Everest or spend a night in Antarctica. There was no lofty ambitions of backpacking through Europe or exploring the mysteries of the Amazon or Africa. There would be no soul searching in Tibet for him. Or pilgrimage to the Holy Lands.
Jacob, in short, wanted the most mundane existence in experience. Because anything beyond that would be truth. Anything beyond that would be owning up to his dead father's ideals. Anything beyond that would be breaking through the poor membrane of a shallow existence that he had worked so hard to create to cocoon himself in.
There was a full life in front of Jacob and he was too fucking scared to embrace it.
