This morning I woke up and was ready to face the day again. I moved slowly to the back of my house to feed my dogs. I remembered that I have been saying all week that I am going to give them a bath. Maybe today will be the day. That’s what I said yesterday. But still, maybe today will be the day.
We use that “maybe” term with our dreams as well. Maybe today will be the day that I start working on that dream of mine. Maybe today I will put aside whatever it is that is holding me back and go after that one thing that I have always wanted to do. Maybe today I will make that decision to leave my very secure job. Maybe today will be the day that I go and explore some part of the country. Maybe today I will spend an hour writing, reading, playing the piano, running. Maybe –
We say “maybe” far too often. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m the only one that says that so often. Maybe I’m the only one that doesn’t have the “guts” to go after their dreams. Or maybe we have a culture of people who are simply afraid to live.
Last night I went to a pub to listen to a band. They were good, not great; there is a lot of potential. But they were good enough for me to look at them and see that here are these people doing what they want to do on a Saturday night. Yes they run the risk of sounding horrible, they run the risk of no-one coming to see them, they run the risk of not making enough money from the $40 cover charge. Despite all of that they are not afraid. They are not afraid to write their music, practice and perform for whoever will listen and even if no one will listen I get the feeling they will still do it anyway.
I have always been surrounded by an interesting group of people – those who follow their dreams and those who don’t. Interesting in that all people have a dream; someone of us just don’t know what it is. But we all have or had something to desire in life; something that will “complete us”.
It is our calling, our destiny, our life’s ambition.
Whatever it is we all possess it. Many of us have forgotten what that “it” actually is. Many of us get lost in what is called reality. We lose our dreams to the world when we are really supposed to live our dreams in this world. A dream cannot be fulfilled anywhere but right here in the world.
It reminds me of a religious organization that says that we have to strive to be saints in the middle of the world, in the middle of our daily activities. Our dreams are no different. The same way this organization says we have to learn to be good Christians where we walk, play, eat, dance, vacation – we can live our dreams in those same places.
We cannot be afraid to be completely human someone once told me. To be human isn’t just to get an education, get a job, get married and have children. Being human, in my opinion, has so many layers, colours, facets that if we ever meet someone that is completely human and living completely a human existence we have met an incredible person.
Many of us, myself including, I believe are too afraid to live life to the fullest – live life in a completely human fashion – not in this disjointed precept that we call life. I wonder why? Is it that we believe in a formula for life? Is it that we are afraid to fail? Is it that we are afraid to succeed and actually be something different from the masses? Are we afraid to be special?
It would be nice to hear – not only what you are afraid of but WHY are you afraid? I carry a false fear – I know it is false – but I carry it anyway - that if I do anything out of the socially acceptable norm I will disappoint my parents. I only carry this fear because I have never known anyone in my family to do something that is not socially acceptable. So your turn! What is your fear! And WHY are you afraid.
2 comments:
First of all. The dream part... I told my son recently you need to figure out what you would do if you KNEW that you CANNOT fail!!!! That would most likely point you in the direction of your dream.
As far as FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real) goes. Fear is also multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. Things that you are afraid of when you're 5 are different from what you're afraid of at 25, etc... Is there something common beneath the various manifestations of fear? I believe fear of death is the most prevalent and consistent; ultimately all fears will lead to that one, I think... The interesting thing is that we have no control over how to avoid death... We can kill ourselves if we so desire but we cannot avoid death at this time. So next time you're afraid, you could probably connect the fear to its logical extension - death...
Can “False Evidence Appearing Real” be applied to death. I mean – let’s think about it – death is a real as the rising sun or a new moon. Death is as real as we get – but then again how real is something that we don’t experience. We don’t really experience death do we – because in essence your have to be alive to experience something. So none of us as much as we afraid of death will ever “experience” death, the same way you can experience a cruise, or a vacation. We don’t come back from death and write in our diary what is was like. Death is “the end of all experience here on earth”. So if death is not something we can physically experience then it is not real. But the fear that we feel is what we think we will experience. We can’t really say if what we “think” we will experience is false or not, because no one really knows. What we think we may experience may actually be true – for example going skydiving – what will happen if the parachute doesn’t open – we will fall to ground and die. There is nothing false about that thought. So FEAR can actually be REAL evidence appearing quite real. But as kpmaynard rightfully noted – our fear wouldn’t be of skydiving it would be of death. All our fears are rooted in death. No one is really fearful of skydiving – they are fearful of the result if everything does not go right when you go skydiving.
But why are we afraid of death when we will never know what it is anyway. So is it death we are most afraid of, or is it truly “the unknown”.
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