What Are You Afraid Of?

About 20 minutes ago I was laying in my bed, minding my own business, attempting to fall asleep when a nagging thought came into my mind. All of a sudden it was as if someone broke into my brain and turned on all of the lights leaving me wide awake.

I couldn’t stop thinking about my Australia trip this past summer. And no, not in the typical “I went abroad and it was the time of my life and I will never shut up about it” type of way. I was remembering how I almost didn’t submit my application because I was too scared to move across the world and how different my year would have been if I had let that fear get the best of me. 

We, as human beings, often make decisions out of fear and disguise them as practicality. We make up excuse after excuse whether it’s “I’m too old for that,” “there are people out there who are way more talented than me,” or “I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” In reality, the reason we aren’t signing up for that marathon, pursuing a career in the arts, or letting someone know that we are into them can be summed up in 5 short words: We. Are. Too. Damn. Afraid.

If you asked around, I don’t think most people would say that their dream in life is to be as practical and comfortable as possible, yet we constantly let ourselves settle for what we deem to be the responsible option because we are too scared of the ‘what if’s’ to take the plunge.

You could spend your entire life imagining the worst case scenarios as many, like myself, often do, but what is the fucking point? Maybe we will crash and burn, maybe taking that leap of faith will become the best decision we ever made, or maybe it will end up somewhere in between. Unfortunately, I am not a psychic and can’t tell you which it will be. But, I do know that if we put half the effort into working towards our dreams as we do coming up with excuses to rationalize why they will never be achieved then I think we would all be a bit happier...or at the very least a bit wiser.

​There are so many people on this planet who do not have the privilege of choosing between the practical and impractical so if you someday find yourself fortunate enough to be in a position to face your fears, I hope that you take it.