No, I'm not talking about the Taylor Swift album, although I could easily write a couple of hundred words about the masterpiece that is that record.
I'm talking about the thing that I think we all wish we were. Fearless. Think about it. Fear keeps us from so much. It keeps us from the big things, like leaps in life that we could be taking. It keeps us from the small things, like talking to that super cute guy in the Starbucks line who ordered your favorite coffee. It keeps us from applying to that school or that internship. For some of us, its keeps us from talking to our friends or going out in public. We let fear keep so much from us.
It makes us question every decision we make. All of the sudden, we aren't sure we're in the right major. We aren't sure we're dating the right guy (this isn't a problem for me because I am apparently eternally single, but I'm trying to be relatable, OK?). The sad truth is that most of us live in some sort of fear. We make decisions based on a fear of what might go wrong because we just know that things could never go right for us. *rolls eyes* We are kind of ridiculous sometimes.
And then there's this idea of being fearless. Uninhibited. Unrestrained. It kind of gets me thinking, who in the world told us we couldn't be this way? I don't know at what point I became so afraid of everything, but I do remember the day that I became sick and tired of being afraid. I got to experience a little bit of fearlessness on my adventures throughout Europe. (I'm not saying you have to travel Europe to be fearless but I am also telling you go to Europe).
It all began the minute I stepped onto the plane. I was forced to handle situations that would have rendered me a snotty ball of ugly crying on the floor in the past. It all almost seems kind of surreal. I ventured out into London at night (not by myself, I'm not that dumb), I climbed two mountains, I made friends and talked to people and tried new things and lived the life that I have always dreamed of but was too afraid to try. Do you know how liberating it is to do something because you want to, without thinking about all of the things that could go wrong? Let me tell you.
It feels like seeing the Tube rush past you in the underground for the first time. It feels like flower markets on a Sunday or wandering through London at 2 a.m. It feels like standing on top of a mountain in the Scottish Highlands and laughing into the wind at all of the people (including yourself) who have labeled you fragile or broken or afraid. It feels like falling in love with random people on the street, which is surprisingly easy to do in London. I
t feels like listening to your favorite song while doing what you always imagined you were doing when listening to that song, like sitting on the top of a bright red double-decker bus and listening to '"A Sky Full of Stars" by Coldplay. It's casually seeing Hugh Grant on the street while you're walking from your flat to the little coffee shop down the street and laughing because it's not the first time this has happened.
I'm beginning to think we don't even need the word fearless at all. Maybe we should just call it being alive. Because that's what I experienced when I decided that fear wasn't an option.
This is me telling you to do the thing that you've always wanted to do. If you were looking for a sign, this is it. Take your fears and tell them that they are tacky and that you hate them and then go out there and, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, "Live the life you have always imagined."
