"Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it."

Hello All! Happy Sunday! We are still very snowed in here in DC and the greater Maryland/Virginia area. Over the past day, I really thought about what I should write about and what my next topic would be. I thought about writing about farmer’s markets or nutrition, and will hopefully cover those topics in the future, but they didn’t seem to resonate with my heart today.

Today, I thought that I would write about fear and taking chances. As my post yesterday suggested, it is sometimes only when we “lose” everything, and are forced to stare our biggest fears in the face, that changes finally happen in our lives. We finally give ourselves permission to take chances. These chances can be in relationships, careers, academics, or almost any area of one’s life. In reflecting on this idea, I thought that the concepts of fear and chance would be important to address.

As a child, my mother would always poke fun at me for being a worrywart. I possessed so much fear and anxiety about the uncertain future that I constantly did not take chances in life or allow myself to truly excel. For example, as a girl, I was a fantastic figure skater. I loved to skate and quickly mastered every move that I learned with ease. As I continued to grow and excel as a skater, I naturally started to learn more difficult moves. One particular move that I learned was the axel. It’s different from the single jumps in that it requires two rotations in the air before landing (essentially it’s a “double” jump). The first few times that I attempted my axel, I failed miserably, and instead of shaking it off, I started listening to other people talk about how difficult axels were, how dangerous they could be, and how long it took to master them (if I ever could). Instead of believing in myself, and the incredible amount of talent that I knew that I possessed, I allowed myself to get so hung up on what others were saying. The funny thing was, I knew that I could land the axel. I was able to land it both off the ice and on the ice, in the harness. The harness was a device that an instructor would attach to you. The instructor would pull the harness, as you jumped, to give you some support and lift, so that you could effectively land. The funny thing was, my instructor would strap me into the harness, and would not lift me at all. It was only through falsely believing that I was receiving her support, that I could land my jumps.

I wish I could tell you that this story has a happy ending, but it doesn’t. I became so hung-up on not being able to land the axel, and how dangerous it was, that I never did land the axel on my own. In fact, I started to become so fearful of the axel, and hurting myself, that I quit figure skating the summer before high school. Looking back, I don’t regret that I quit figure skating, I do believe that everything happens for a reason. I was, however, so paralyzed by fear that I never even really tried. I was so terrified of the unknown that I never really gave myself permission to live and succeed.

I have recently come to realize, we will always experience fear in our lives. Fear is a subconscious mechanism that protects us from harm or hurt. In looking at fear in that light, we come to understand that it’s underlying intentions are good. The problem is when fear prevents us from taking chances and making changes in our lives. I’m not saying that all of the chances we take will lead us to utter bliss, and taking chances can sometimes cause us more pain in the end, but often we never allow ourselves to know the difference. I very recently realized that I don’t want to be afraid of failing and changing anymore. The uncertainty of life will always be there because life is always uncertain. When we understand our fears, often we come to the ironic realization, that we’re usually afraid of actually succeeding and achieving. As has been said before, “it is often our light, not our darkness, that frightens us the most.”

As the wise Bill Cosby said, "decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it."

So I ask myself, if my very worst fear came true, how do I win in the end?