Something that has come to light during our journey of living differently is the State of Fear that surrounds us. From the nightly news to friends, family and even strangers, we are constantly told to be afraid.
From the simple mom statement: If you go out with wet hair you’ll catch your death.
To the medical prescription ads: If your left pinky twinges at 10am every day, you might have…or if you have taken medicine x you might be able to sue because…
To the nightly news: The war on terror….The extreme weather…The government is going to take away your health care…You get the idea.
Some fear is legitimate: The fact that half the cars you pass show the tops of drivers heads because they are staring down at their cell phone or their navel for all I know.
Some fear is absurd: Read above about the pinky twinging at 10am every day:)
The bottom line is that we are surrounded by fear.
That brings us to a crossroad. Let the fear paralyze us or take a deep breath and live.
We are choosing to live, despite the fear. We chose to ride motorcycles when half the people we met told us how dangerous they were. We chose to rock climb when people told us they could never do that because it was way to scary and weren’t we afraid of falling? And, we are choosing to travel even when people tell us all the “bad” things we are going to encounter.
We are choosing to embrace the fear and live, to find the good, meet new people, see new places and maybe, just maybe, make a crack or a tiny fissure in the state of fear that surrounds us.