Avoiding Fear

This is the easy way to live life: never do anything that scares you. This is also the most boring way possible to live life. These are the two facts that I have discovered after 28 years of living.

To my recollection, I have never continued to be scared of something after actually doing it. I'm not really talking about the major fears some people have: fear of spiders or snakes, of heights, or of clowns. There are far more small fears that we barely even recognize as such. Fear of not being able to change who we are. Fear of not being recognized for our accomplishments. Fear of moving to a new town, state, or country. Fear of feeling like an idiot because we don't really know how to do something that we 'should' know how to do. Fear of offending people whose opinions we value. Fear of letting down our family or friends. These are the fears that paralyze us, that keep us in the same habits and ruts that we've lived in for so long. These are the fears that make our lives very predictable, safe, and boring.

Facing a fear, even a small one, and getting past it is what makes us grow. Sometimes we have no option (or at least it seems like we don't), sometimes a friend challenges us (purposefully or inadvertently), and sometimes we just summon up the guts to face a fear. Today I have chosen to attempt to discover one fear that I have and face it for every day that I can, starting today.

Today my fear is just a little one. I am scared to write about how I want to change for fear that I will look back on it later and laugh (while cringing on the inside) because I have still not changed. I am facing my fear by writing this, and saving it somewhere where I will read it later. Coincidently, this also lets me face another fear that I am only half-facing today: the fear that nobody wants to hear what I have to say, that I have nothing of worth to share, and that I am a nobody. I suppose the root of both of these fears is that I am afraid that I have no self-discipline. If I post this where others can read it, and then I stop writing after a few days or weeks, I will have let people down, I will look like a quitter, and I will once again feel like I can't establish habits and routines in my life that I want to.

I wanted to not face that fear today. I wanted to just save this and 'maybe post it later.' After all, I haven't posted to my blog in... years, I suppose. Nobody would even know if I didn't post this now. But acknowledging a fear and then hiding from it makes the fear grow, so I will post this. If I never get started, I will never know if I can keep it up.

Got a fear (big or small) that you've been pretending didn't exist? Yeah, me too. I've got lots. Time to start figuring out what they are so I can deal with them.