Aggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
Do you ever stop and think about the role of fear in your life? I thought about that a lot today, and my conclusion was – scary. 
An example:
I’ve been writing posts for this blog for months now. I’ve published nothing. All because I’m really scared of it. It seems simple – this is just a silly little blog. No one is reading it. I’m not facing a firing squad. What is scaring me is all the things that haven’t happened yet – criticism from people saying that I suck, the possibility that I do suck, knowing how much time it takes to become an excellent writer, blah, blah, blah. The voice in my head is so whiny that it’s getting sick of itself, but not so sick that it stops yelling at me.
I write almost every day, but writing for myself, or with the intent to SOMEDAY publish is different from writing TO publish.
There is a story that Rolf Potts tells in his book Vagabonding (awesome, awesome book and that is an affiliate link) about two monks named Theodore and Lucius who wanted to travel the world. But because they took vows of contemplation, this was something they couldn’t do. To deal with that they ‘mocked their temptations,’ by putting their travels off into the future. When summertime came they said they would leave in the winter; when winter came they said they would leave in the summer. They did this for fifty years, not breaking their vows or leaving the monastery.
That is what I’ve been doing. I keep putting publishing off – the scary part. But by saying that I will do it in the future I don’t feel like a complete ‘fraidy cat. My brain is maneuvering itself to try to simultaneously please the part of my brain that houses my dreams and my lizard brain that is full of resistance. Side note: if you want to read a great book about resistance and our brains, read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (also an affiliate link).
In a moment of stupidity, that I have regretted since then – I decided to outsmart myself. I talked to my friend Matt and he became my accountability partner. The deal: I have to publish something by tonight (a term used loosely, since it is 11:57 pm) or give him $50. He is hoping I don’t follow through. I’m hoping he forgot.
I have done just about anything to procrastinate. I have watched tv. I have even researched ‘how to be a blogger,” hoping there would be some magic pill somewhere that would let me know how to deal with the fear of hitting ‘publish’. Which is pretty ridiculous. The answer is to just do it.
“Courage is being scared to death – but saddling up anyway.”
- John Wayne
The point of this entire blog is to get outside myself and grow – and to share what happens. Oddly, sharing the journey is one of the things that makes me uncomfortable. There will be other times that I’m scared to take the next step, but my goal is to keep stepping and to keep doing things that initially make me uncomfortable – and becoming comfortable in the uncomfortable.
Today, that is doing something as simple as hitting ‘publish’. And keeping $50.
Postscript: I published this a bit earlier – and re-learned this lesson: the fear of doing something is usually A LOT worse than actually doing it. Hitting ‘publish’ wasn’t difficult.
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