“Dream big and dare to fail”. – Norman Vaughan
Et voila! I finally cracked the code on why I keep making the same poor choices, aka mistakes, over and over ad nauseum. Fear. Fear of making a “new” mistake. Well for fucks sake what kind of logic is that dumpster fire of a thought. Whenever I reflect on the things I hate about myself, my life, the missed chances and roads not taken, it all circles back to fear. Fear can be a power motivator, and yes, I have a great story for that in another post (see “The Race to Bear Mountain”). But more often than not, fear has been the destroyer of my dreams. Fear is a motherfucking liar. It takes my dreams from me and hides them away under the premise that it’s saving me once again from the shame and hardships of making a mistake. Fear has kept me small. It has held me frozen in place. Fear has stolen my voice and hijacked my brain into making the most nonsensical decisions. It demanded that I abandon my heart and logic in exchange for a false sense of safety. It has paraded around my head like the voice of reason when in fact, now that I have decided to get in its face and challenge it, I see it is a bold-faced liar. A thief. A cheat. It hasn’t been sparing me from all that could go wrong but keeping me from all that could go right. Fear has been mislabeling my dreams as mistakes before they even happen. Sure, the end results of chasing dreams are unknown and unpredictable. I don’t have a crystal ball. No one does, not even my all-knowing mom. But I can finally see that keeping myself in this same familiar place doesn’t create safety. It breeds regret and sadness over what could have been. It drives a wedge between who I truly am and how I’m currently living. Fuck you fear. Take your FOMO and what-if’s with you. I’m freeing myself from your chains and living from my heart. I’m chasing my dreams and failing with all that I got!