A little fear is a good thing!

“Don’t worry about being worried. You’re heading out on an adventure and you can always change your mind along the way and try something else.”

Tracy Kidder

It is amazing how much freedom comes from viewing the world with a “life is an adventure“ perspective. When you think about exploration and innovation or starting something new, there has to be a degree of fear and excitement. Frankly, you can’t have an adventure without a little bit of uncertainty and a strong underlying element of mystery and excitement.

But in order to keep from letting fear shut you down, you must understand the role fear plays in an adventure. It is supposed to be something that motivates you to go a little harder, push a little further, dig a little deeper. Fear is necessary and needed in order to grow. Fear can be a is a great motivator, especially when you keep these words from Proverbs in your mind…

“Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” Proverbs 29:25 NIV

Don’t spend your time endlessly worrying about what might happen on your great adventure. Channel the fear in a positive way and know that when you put your faith in the right place, you will be safe. The path will appear, and if it doesn’t, you can always find another path…

Na Pali Coast, Hawaii

Live the adventure!

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”

Helen Keller

If you aren’t living life in this way what exactly do you have? An existence. Simply a series of events moving you towards a point in the future which may or may not be meaningful. For most of us, present times set aside, our lives are no longer about mere survival. We have more to give, more to see, more to do, more to live.

When we become timid and choose to wait to see what the world throws at us, we lose the ability to seek out the new adventures that might be just beyond the turn in the road in front of us.

The best way to live life in the moment, and not miss out on what is truly important, is to focus on being present TODAY and thereby reducing future regrets. When the end comes, and it will come for all of us, what will you regret having NOT done? What adventures will you wish you HAD taken? Who will you wish you had spent MORE time with?

clear glass with red sand grainer
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Change is an investment opportunity…

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

Dan Millman

Change can be tough.  There will be uncertainty and the unknown lurking just over the horizon. Staying the same is always the easier choice, though it is only very rarely more beneficial.  Every great discovery and adventure story starts with, as it’s basic premise, uncertainty, the unknown, great risk and only the potential for reward.  Frodo Baggins certainly defied all Hobbit traits by setting out on his great adventure.  It would have been much easier for him to stay home, bury his head in the sand like an ostrich and ignore the burning world around him.  But that isn’t the choice that he made, and if you are as much of a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic as I am you know how that turned out…  

Building something new takes energy, but it is an investment in new experiences that creates the person you were born to become.  We all have a FINITE amount of energy to spend.  Do you invest it in the future or spend it trying to hang on to the past?  For example, think of how much money has been spent by people trying to look younger than they are.  Money well spent fighting the perception of the aged or would it be money better spent embracing new life experiences or helping others? That’s a very personal choice, but it represents the choices we make when we are fighting to stay the same instead of investing in becoming a new and better self.  

What investments are you going to make today?

 

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dusty

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