Good fear

Chapter 335

Do one thing every day that scares you." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

This is not about being afraid or frightened all the time, of course its about stretching your boundaries. And stretching your boundaries is about being uncomfortable,and the more uncomfortable you can manage, the closer you approach that which scares you, its your edge, your boundaries, unchartered territory for you. You don’t know how it will turn out, or IF it will turn out. You don’t know how badly it may hurt, how difficult it may prove to be, nor how much it may cost you in the end. All these unknowns have a cost.

But you push your boundaries wider, deeper, taller, every time you do this. Your world gets bigger. Your hemisphere grows. You can no longer be threatened afraid or contained by the world you once lived in. You have changed. You can never be the same. How you see the world is forever altered. This is what happens to you when you do one thing every day that frightens you a little bit. It doesn’t make you more afraid, it lessens your fear, increases your confidence, expands your world.

Forcing ourselves to do this with any sort of regularity is the real challenge in my opinion. There are so many demands and expectations on our time and schedules that seeking out the boundary-expanding experiences seems to get pushed to the sidelines of the maybe tomorrow and not right now categories. But how much do we lose each day, playing it safe, in the known and expected and sure parts of life, rather than exploring and seeking out the edges. It’s from the edges that all the life-changing pieces come.

Be a bit afraid every day, by choice.