Be scared. You won't die from being scared.
Even going into 2018, the same things that scared me at the beginning of this big move continue to scare me now. I don’t seek to remove the fear. I don’t care about being scared. It isn’t unique to me since everyone is scared of something. I’d rather be scared. At least the fear makes me go “I’m David and I’m about to do…” It forces me into the moment and that’s where we truly live.
If you’ve ever moved out of your parents’ house to another state to do anything else and begin the whole starting your own life sort of thing, it’s scary. Whether it is supposed to be scary or not is another thing but it’s stepping out into the unknown in a more dynamic way. You leave the nest, you separate from the herd, you become the lone wolf for a period of time and try to make your own way. I couldn’t sleep for more than two odd hours a night because it was so quiet in my new apartment. I have two younger brothers that are as loud as I am and I’m not used to much silence. I had to fall asleep with my music on because my room doesn’t have a fan in it and I’m one of those sleepers that needs the white noise to know that there’s something else there. I never understood the psychology behind why some people can’t fall asleep in pure silence but eh that’s for another time. I fall asleep with the bathroom fan on most days after work because I literally cannot fall asleep in pure silence. For the first two months I was scared of somehow just being buried under stress. Which is stress itself. Can I make ends meet and continue to save money? How will I handle grad school on top of working this much? How much more punishment can my body take because less than three hours of sleep a night adds up to your body either getting sick or not recovering properly and you end up constantly dragging your feet 24/7. The worry hasn’t gone away. I still constantly worry about that. I don’t trust that it’s going to be okay soon enough. I don’t trust that I’m somehow going to figure it all out or that it, “it” referring to life right about now, will all work out in some weird form.
AND THE GREAT THING ABOUT IT IS THAT I DON’T NEED TO.
It's like Yosemite Sam met philosophy.
Call it bleak or negative or whatever else you want. It doesn’t make sense to me why I have to constantly seek harmony when it comes to work, socializing, fun, grad school, and anything else I want to throw into my day. Jeff Bezos mentioned in an interview he gave that he doesn’t like to call seeing a work-life balance a “balance”, as “balance” implies a strict trade. He calls it harmony. That presupposes that harmony can be found. My first semester of seminary told me that harmony is usually a coerced presumption when we read the Bible or look at church traditions and try to make them systematic. Why do we act as though we can’t, and I mean lack the ability to function in any way or shape or form or manner or mode or concept, live in the tension? I don’t have to know that it’s going to be okay. I don’t have to lie to myself that it WILL be okay soon enough. I’m here now in some strange city at a strange school trying to live dynamically but I don’t understand why you have to not be scared. The fear never goes away, usually you’ll be told to mitigate it and to me that makes little sense. Maybe I’m a strict Nietzschean in this regard. Trying to become something truly special, becoming the best possible version of yourself, hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. You’re supposed to suffer. Don’t reconcile it with yourself. Be scared. You’ve been scared before. Children might be scared of the monsters under their beds but we grew up to recognize that we face monsters everyday. Instability, fear of loss, death, fear of poverty, failure, not becoming something special, failing your loved ones, recognizing your potential may have been realized already and you have nothing more to contribute to your immediate communities, you know, the typical existential dilemmas we all have at some point in our lives. If you’ve ever been in line for a roller coaster and felt scared while being in line and STILL WENT ON THE ROLLER COASTER WHILE YOU WERE SCARED, you know that being scared won’t kill you.
*gets off pulpit*
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