Are you afraid of anything?

Don't answer that because I already know the answer. Everyone is afraid of something. No matter how big or small, everyone has a fear of something. It's so normal to have fears.

I've been asked what I'm afraid of a handful of times over the past two weeks. The context changes, but my answer is still the same.

My biggest fear in life is just existing. I don't want to be 35 and wake up one day and think, "How the hell did I get here?" I don't want my life to be just me going through the motions and just living my life.

Granted I'm afraid of many other things like bad coffee or failing out of school or not ever getting married and growing up and being an old cat lady. The one that keeps me up at night though is living a life of mediocrity.

Do I let it consume me? Do I let my fear of mediocrity invade every part of my life? Do I let that fear eat at me?

My automatic answer is no. No, don't let that fear take over because it'll be all you think about. It will literally eat at your soul before you address it. I still think about it though. I'll be sitting doing homework and see some post on Facebook of someone I went to high school with doing some amazing thing and think, "I'm sitting in a Starbucks avoiding my history homework and you're building schools in Uganda. Cool." It's become so automatic to downplay my life because I'm not doing what someone else is doing.

There's a lyric from a Ben Rector song that goes, "I've been scared to death of failing, scared that I'd look like a fool, and I'd rather quit than risk that I could lose." And it's been on my mind ever since I heard the song for the first time. It's normal to be afraid of failing. Trust me when I say that everyone has felt or is feeling that way right now.

I can tell you that I'm so afraid of failing to do something with my life that I just don't do anything. I think, "I'll get there someday but today I want to sit in bed and watch Netflix until I fall asleep." I'm so concerned with not living a mediocre life that I live a slow life. My life just kind of goes. It just moves on, like a slow train to nowhere.

I tell you all of this to tell you this one point: fear is normal. Fear is that thing in the back of your mind that doesn't go away no matter how hard you try. Sounds kind of morbid, but it's true. Fear is that thing can either make or break you. But, how you deal with fear also determines how you live your life.

Are you going to let your fear of whatever consume you? Or are you going to let fear determine how you live your life?