bearding the lion
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photo by steed media service |
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” –Helen Keller
Fear is a dream killer. Fear is a crippler. Living one’s life in a fearful manner is like trying to exercise while strapped into a straitjacket. Why take a perfectly operating system (life) and suffocate it with fear? We all admire fearless people. They might seem a little off, a bit odd. We might laugh behind their backs. We wonder if they are aware of their peculiarity. One thing the fearless are not concerned about is what the self-appointed arbiters of all that is right-with-the-world think. You can’t attain what the lionhearted possess because every time you take a step, fear’s icy fingers clutch your heart muscle in a death grip that immobilizes you.
It’s difficult to live life with death stalking one’s every waking moment and movement. So stop thinking about how you’re going to die and start living. Certain decisions have to be made independently. Just as you made a choice to live in fear, you have to decide to live boldly without it. The sick part about being a coward is that we pass that legacy on to our children. From the cradle they learn to shrink from challenges and compress themselves into balls of anxiety. Helen Keller was deaf and blind, and yet, she thought life was a great adventure. It is beyond comprehension that those of us in full possession of our faculties fail to embrace that truth.
You are a unique soul. No one else in the universe can offer what you can to the world. Don’t allow fear — of people, failure, the boogeyman, the truth or success — to hinder your ability to live a full, rich life. Cowards live in foxholes and wonder why the air is fetid and their skin has a sickly pallor. Don’t settle for a life of nothingness; crawl out of that foxhole and grab hold of the adventure that awaits you.
Peace.
