Don't Be Afraid

I think we live in a fearful world. A world that fears danger and flees from conflict as opposed to embracing challenges and deciding to overcome fear. It troubles me to know that somethings scare people, when they should really be using them as motivating factors or reassurances in their lives. Here are just a few fears I think you should reconsider... fearing.

Change

Change is a relatively vague topic, but the fear of things around you changing or the fear of yourself changing is real and I see it often. You shouldn't be afraid of circumstances changing, in fact, you should embrace it. Without shaking things up a bit every once in a while, life gets dull. If you don't try out that new coffee place, you might not see how cool it is and why everyone is buzzing about it. By not moving away from home, you might never find what your true calling is. Without opening up to trying new things, you could get into some serious trouble. Alan Watts did a great speech on this. He proposes the idea of being able to dream in one night, 75 years worth of time, and be able to control every aspect. Though that 75 years will be remarkable, you will end up bored, and want some surprises. It is a thought provoking speech to make you re-think routine and sameness.

Death

"If you aren't aware of your own death, how can you possibly attempt to live?"— Gary Vaynerchuk

You're going to die. Stop hiding from that fact. Death is as natural as something can be, yet it is one of the most feared aspects of life. Having experienced a fair share of losses for a young man, I can concur that death is definitely heart-wrenching, catastrophically sad, and countless other negative adjectives. But I can't seem to wrap my head around why people are so scared of it happening to them. I think, no matter what background you're from, that death shouldn't be a paralyzing thing, but a motivating factor in your ambitions. I mean, we are on this Earth to live. We are here to be happy. To me, that's the ultimate goal. But we don't know when our time is going to end. So I need to have left my mark on this world so that when I do die, the people who knew me or read my stuff online were impacted in some way. I guess I do want a legacy of some kind. What's crucial is that we do not know when our time is up, yet people are living like they have a million years to live. There's power in the unknown. It isn't scary to me. It's lighting a fire under my ass to live my best life.

Failure

If you're afraid to fail then you're in for a rough go. Failure is how anything gets better in this world. I see failure as my best ticket forward in life because it's the greatest teacher. It definitely trumps all success. It's the reason why we succeed. I'm in love with the notion of failing so much, it's probably a problem. People get so hung up about not successfully completing a task because they don't know how they'll cope with the repercussions. Then they end up not even trying. You just have to know how to take your failures, learn from them, get back up, and crush it even harder than you were going to before.

Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.”― John Maxwell, Failing Forward

I know I have a tendency to ramble (sorry not sorry), but what I'm trying to get at is that you shouldn't be fearful of anything—I mean spiders can all die—if you are able to comprehend that embracing change, new experiences, and stop worrying about death, but using it to motivate yourself. Fear is paralyzing. Start embracing. You'll find life a lot more positive. I promise that only good will come to you, you just have to look deeper.

Cheers,

Zachary

If you enjoyed what you read, please share with your friends and consider leaving a tip below. All contributions are appreciated.