Fear & Adventure

Most days I find it extremely challenging to take my thoughts and turn them into something coherent. For a very, very long time, people have been telling me that I should write a book, or they could see me writing, or asking if I’ve written stuff, music, whatever. But, when I sit down to actually write something it feels like I have nothing of importance to say, or at least, nothing that hasn’t already been said. There are countless blogs, books, articles, essays and more that have expressed similar thoughts and ideas already.

What makes my story different? What makes this special?

So far, nothing, in fact there’s almost nothing here. Fear has kept me from putting (so-called) pen to paper. Fear of failure. What if? What if after all the encouragement and expectation and hope other people have put into me… what if it isn’t good? What if I fail to meet my own (unreasonable) expectations for myself? What if I succeed?

A recurring theme in my life is this: If you never try, you cannot fail. It is not true, but it feels true. What a waste, to never try. That used to hold me back from trying new things, meeting new people and generally experiencing life. It seems so much easier to cave in to the fear; but truly, life will be rich when we actually begin to live, to experience.

As Win Borden said, “If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.”

So what am I waiting for? I need to start the adventure & stop being afraid.

Writing. It seems that this is an area I’m going to try to step out in more frequently. It doesn’t really matter if anyone ever reads this. But, I’m going to write and see where it takes me.

There are probably going to be times where I fail miserably, but there may also be times when it’s really great. Who knows? But going on the adventure is where all the fun is. It is not waiting at home, looking through someone else’s pictures & hearing someone else’s stories of the adventure you wish you had taken.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself.