Fear

"A Ship in a Harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are made for"-William Shedd

We wake up 40 years from now and realize everything we didn't have the time to do. Except that we did have the time and we did have the opportunity, but it's a lot easier to pretend we didn't than to tell ourselves the truth. What's the truth?

The truth is that we were afraid. That we lived our life thinking about everything that could go wrong and instead of deciding to take a chance we didn't stand up for ourselves. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, and even fear of success. We let fear get in the way. We let fear hold us prisoner.

We have a term for this...it's called a mid-life crisis and it is very common. Not everyone has one, but if we made up a term for it chances are most people do in some sense. The biggest problem is that by the time that crisis occurs and we start to blame all the "should of"s on fake reasons like time, its too late to truly fix the problem. Although many try: the brand new convertible, 20-something year old mistress. or other fillers that can temporary placate the emotions we feel about our "failure to live" don't actually satisfy the needs they are pretending to fill.

Why is it that we are a people controlled by fear? We are controlled by fear because we must protect ourselves and if something is scary we label it dangerous as well, even when that is not the case. For example, hitting on someone may result in getting rejected that's scary, I get it, but is it dangerous? Will it prevent you from living the rest of your life? and what exactly is the cost of not hitting on them? Because when you really break it down...living a life alone is just as scary as one person rejecting you, isn't it? "Lonely hearts are never broken" but they are still lonely. Associating negative consequences with danger or harm is just not logical.

What if you fail? Does someone die? Well maybe if you are a heart surgeon or Airplane Pilot, but liekely the answer is no. What happens is you fail, boo hoo, and then you pick yourself up and you try something different, or you find the mistakes that led you to fail and you fix them. The problem comes from our perception of failure, and when we change our perception we change our life.

The quote I began this post with has been one of my favorite quotes for a long time. I can't remember the first time I heard it, but I have seen it several times since. The message is simple, and yet most of us, including myself, ignore it. Safety takes priority and we don't do what we are made to do because we are so caught up in keeping ourselves away from risk. In a study of 80-90 year olds, 84% indicated that their biggest regret was that they didn't take enough risks. BIGGEST REGRET.. approximately 4 out of every 5 people. That doesn't mean that the 5th person doesn't have that regret too it only means they have another regret that is bigger.

So you have two choices: (1) live your life now, courageously face fear and fail, get rejected, get embarrassed, and make mistakes. Sounds scary, but there is another side to that because you also get to succeed, live a life, and make progress. or (2) you can wait until you are old and gray and relive your safe life over and over in your head wishing you could have been just a little more brave.

I'm not saying its easy, as a matter of fact, I am saying its hard. And anyone who knows me knows I am the queen of fear, so of course its hard for me as well. It's supposed to be hard because that's what makes it worth it.

The only fear we should let run our life is the fear that we will wake up one morning and realize we never really "lived"