And making space for possibility.
Have you ever noticed how differently we approach life when we’re excited about something versus when we’re scared shitless of it?
Somewhere along the way, a lot of us—myself absolutely included—become frickin’ expert-level warriors when it comes to protecting ourselves in any and every situation, and for good cause, let me add.
Looking back, it’s hardly an overly suspicious or shocking revelation that so many of us have built parts of our lives around fear. It’s seen as practical and responsible. I know I saw it as telling myself that I was making smart choices and, again to be fair, nine times out of ten, I was.
Teaching myself caution is one thing, but holding back entirely can be crippling.
By the time we reach our Big Age, most of us have experienced enough disappointment, setbacks, heartbreak, mistakes, and unexpected plot twists – some self-imposed – to understand that things don’t always go the way we’d hoped. Experience is a wonderful guide, but every now and then it can become a slightly overprotective parent. And instead of doing the job of helping us move forward, it starts tricking us, encouraging us even, to stay exactly where we are. Better the devil you know, right?
Living Smaller On Purpose or Out of Purpose?
It’s an easy thing to miss, and it took me a minute (read: decades) to notice that fear doesn’t always stop us from living in one fell swoop. More often, it simply convinces us to live smaller than we otherwise might. So we take the safer route through our own lives. Delay things we’d like to experience. Talk ourselves out of opportunities before they’ve even had a chance to disappoint us – and some might, but some won’t. The level of constant protection might ‘fake’ as peace, but years down the road reveals itself that it was never making us particularly happy.
And always at some point, whether the moment is breaking, dramatic, or barely noticeable, something shifts.
It might be based on a seemingly innocent word, throwaway sentence, or small gesture that your body takes in differently from the hundreds of other times before. So that this time, in a quieter, reflective moment you finally hear, see, and feel it. That you’ve spent enough time looking over your shoulder and are finally ready to start looking ahead.
Making Room for Possibility
I think… no I know, that’s why I truly admire people who are able, at whatever point, to go boldly and choose a new chapter for themselves. Starting over, or starting sideways as I call it, is far from easy, because it requires a shit ton of faith. When in the beginning faith can seem as blind as a bat dwelling in the darkest, scariest cave. Until it slowly shifts and twists into a light signaling there are indeed still good things ahead. That we can trust ourselves to understand that one decision doesn’t define an entire future. And have faith that this chapter of our lives can continue to surprise us in the best of ways.
It might take a minute (not decades), but when you’re no longer building your life on fear, your thinking starts to change. There are psychological and neuroscience studies on this – and I need to dig up the articles for a separate post on that – that instead of asking what might go wrong, you intentionally focus on what can go right. Psychology, neuroscience, delulu, maybe? I’ll take them all.
More ‘Best Chapters’ Can Still Be Ahead
Don’t get it twisted! I’m Gen X and still love that phrase from my childhood days in the UK watching the uber-cool Black American shows, but this way of thinking doesn’t mean every decision suddenly becomes easy and right, or that fear magically disappears. We wish! To me, it now means fear no longer needs to drive the bus. That it takes more of a back seat and gets a smaller vote. A logical vote, yes, but not the deciding vote each and every time.
At my Big Age, I find that reframing surprisingly comforting and more than doable. There are still things I want to do, places to visit, experiences to indulge in, fantastic people I haven’t met, and overall versions of myself I haven’t fully grown into. Our story isn’t finished simply because a chapter ended.
If anything, maybe because that chapter ended, it’s made space for some of the most interesting parts of our story still ahead of us to come to the front.
Maybe that’s what happens when you’re no longer building your life on fear. You stop constructing walls around yourself and start kicking open a few doors.
