“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that things are difficult.” — Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Consider making two lists. The first includes all the troubles you have endured, as well as your successes, joys, and triumphs. Number the times you acted as Eleanor Roosevelt advised:
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face… You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Add the fears and anxieties you have overcome, including those expected disasters that never arrived in full force except in your imagination.
The second list is different. Include the risks you never lived, but for thoughts and nightmares, defeating you before you took them on.
These are the inert, self-created monsters of intimidation, like the diving platform of infinite height at which you stare, from which you never jump.
Internal fear factories create predetermined defeats. The failed advisors masquerade as wise instructors, but mislead us and diminish our confidence.
Do you remember the poor advice and anticipation sufficient to undo us?
- Avoiding doctors because of the dread of a digital rectal exam.
- Dodging or giving up on a rope climb to the gym ceiling because of predicted embarrassment or injury.
- Never stepping into the elevator headed for the top of a skyscraper.
- The terror of making public speeches. You expect paralysis of your vocal cords to the point of speechlessness, and rivers of perspiration enough to drown in. So you think.
- Deciding to ride in a car, but not a plane.
- Staying away from injections of any kind.
- Going to a restaurant with a companion, but not alone.
Living a full life is a matter of quiet daring.
Not tomorrow, not after you do the dishes or mow the lawn, not waiting until you read a book to prepare yourself.
Not ’till then, you say. But soon there are no more thens ahead, only the irretrievable time behind you.
Throw yourself in, make mistakes, and jump back in the game. Now.
We needn’t announce our brave plans the same way we count all the steps back we’ve taken. Our indecisions and hesitations build one upon another.
That is the real risk: to be crushed under the weight of what we don’t do now and never did before. Heavy, immovable legs fix us in a position of unfreedom.
Do not remain a prisoner of fear and indecision. Liberate yourself. Cognitive Behavioral therapy can help.
A jail break or a lifetime in the slammer are in your hands.
It is time.
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The photo at the top is Beauty Salons by Mostafameraji. It is sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
