Like all writing, this post is more of a self-portrait or confession than it is a piece of ”valuable content” in the self-help or motivational ocean of advice. The point of writing is to mine out the nuggets of truth that we learn from examining our own experience in life. Though my perspective may not be the definitive way of seeing any given issue, it is still ‘a’ perspective and if for no other reason than to clarify my own situation it is worth doing. Who knows? Maybe someone else may benefit from it.
As I look back over my life I think the primary reason that I made some of the decisions I made was based in fear. Even though I would have moments where boldness overcame fear there always came a point at which I stepped back from something before the fruits of my boldness could take effect.
In my book ”Boredom to Brilliance” I discuss the issue of the ”Fear of not being good enough.” I guess you could say it is a fear of inadequacy and the problem with it is that at some point this fear is going to always keep you from realizing the true value of what you have in you to discover.
Greatness is what lies beyond the walls of fear.
Certainly, if deep down you know that you are going to feel inadequate because you ”overstepped” your abilities and that you know you aren’t good enough at some point, then why begin at all? If you aren’t going to kiss the homecoming queen, why go to the trouble of asking her out to begin with? What if you did? Would she think you are a pervert? Would everyone laugh at you for trying? How awful will it be when you ”break up?” For every success one has in life there is always going to be a new opportunity for disaster and the stakes grow as you continue down the path. It is a metaphor for life.
There a lot of really good reasons to be fearful.
But where does all of that lead? It leads to boredom.
Boredom comes from the prison of fear that surrounds us and prevents us from determining our own future. This is like being convicted of a crime you didn’t commit and being wrongly imprisoned because of it. Only in this case it is a sentence you have given yourself and the only one suffering from the injustice is you.
Consider what kind of hell it would be to be forced to lead a life totally against your will. Well, in many respects we do that every single day to ourselves because fear is holding us prisoner and boredom is a sedative that helps us become able to tolerate it. Boredom is a survivor’s way of enduring fear. It doesn’t hurt us, it just sort of numbs us.
What do you NOT do out of fear? What IS the REAL reason?
Something as simple as going on vacation but not doing it because you don’t have enough money. Is a lack of money the real reason? Probably not.
You can save up for a vacation and earmark money for that purpose, as you should do. So, money isn’t the reason.
The real reason is because your mind may logically tell you ‘you don’t need it’ or ‘there are other things you need to spend money on’ or I can wait to do that later. Any number of mind altering justifications for NOT doing what you want to do.
The point here isn’t whether you should go on vacation or not. The point is that we suffer from the mind numbing arguments that plague our daily lives out of a false sense of prudence and the only real result of that is to NOT DO something. Since NOT DOING involves no risk or punishment, we become okay with NOT DOING, NOT HAVING or NOT BEING what we want.
We are learning not to want because wanting and not getting is too painful.
I made a comment to a friend of mine years ago upon a question she asked me, ”What do you want?” I answered honestly saying ”I want not to want.” ”I don’t want to ‘need’.” ”I can do without the things in life that are commonly known as life’s necessities and joys.” ”When you have no wants or needs you have no disappointment, no heart break, no misery.” All that is left is boredom and a life of nothingness which is logically placed in the rubric of ‘consciousness’ or the absence of worldly desires and being ‘happy and content with nothingness.’
This kind of logic of course follows with the Jesus mantra of ”What good is it to gain the world and lose your soul?” If your spirit is in order then the world is unimportant for you and you are ‘happy’.
But I think it is misrepresented. I doubt seriously that Jesus meant that everyone should just shed all of their worldly things and start to walk around preaching the Gospel. How would that look? He wouldn’t be able to be a guest in anyone’s house because nobody would have one. He wouldn’t be able to preach to anyone because then everyone would already be saved. You would have a world of people just floating around in the fog of spirituality and nothing would ever get done.
All of nature does the best it can. Things in nature do not have the type of mind numbing fear we as humans suffer from. Yes, a rabbit will run away from a cougar who wants to eat it for dinner. The cougar is just going for a bite to eat. He has no malice in his hunting. The rabbit has wise fear that tells him to run so it won’t get eaten, but that doesn’t stop him from going out and eating some fresh grass in a field. He forgets being chased and goes back to being a hungry rabbit.
You see, our human fear is a mental construction placed in our minds by the elements of society. When we sacrifice our desires out of fear we are losing the passion we have in life for living.
It is our needs, our desires and our wants that are the rewards of life for living a life of optimism and hope. Fear destroys all things.
Logic would tell you that if you are afraid to lose, you will lose. Then logic would say that if you are afraid to win, you will win, right? Well, it doesn’t work that way does it? The fact is, if you are afraid to win you will certainly lose.
Fear is a part of life. That much is a given. If fear is imprisoning you and stealing your life of it’s excitement, then the question is ”How do you stop it?”
I think it is all about designing your life so that what you want will come to you if you follow the guidelines you set up to make it happen. Set a lot of milestones to be reached, daily, so that you feel your progress in daily life and make the ”dates of the vacation” a hard deadline that you will do when that time comes. Then you must keep that promise to yourself and do it.
I have ‘lost’ at least 10 years of my life to fear and the price is very high for it. If there is a lesson I have learned from it is that the truth is ”Boredom destroys life and that Brilliance is only a step away.” Every moment of life that is the decision to be made. Even though I wrote the book on it and know that what is in the book is true, fear has caused me to shy away from the ‘good news’ that the book brings to me, and can bring to anyone looking to break through the fearful life that they are leading.
Fear blocks the natural gifts of needing, wanting and desiring which leads to working, giving and contributing to the world so you can enjoy the satisfaction of realizing your dreams. You don’t have to be 100% perfect or right about everything, but your effort must be 100%. That is the true measure of success.
How do you function even though you are fearful? I believe the secret lies within the truth that whatever it is you want is already coming at you. Knowing that then life becomes simply a matter of facilitating it.
Don’t allow fear to imprison you. You were born free. Be free.