Recently, the ever-so-lovely Alicia Burrell gave me the privilege of reading an equally inspirational book, The Lipstick Gospel. In the autobiographical account of a college student who is hitting a serious identity crisis, Wilson explains the importance of taking a leap of faith both physically and mentally.
I suppose that doing something scary usually means like skydiving or something equally ridiculous; well, not that skydiving is necessarily ridiculous, but I mean something more elegant than such. What scares you? Like, what really scares you?
When I was younger, it was Chucky (the freaky doll from that horror movie), and I've grown out of that by focusing on how awkwardly the doll moved in the movie. At this present moment, spiders scare me. However, among these frivolous fears, my goals/ambitions/dreams (what you will) have never been the subject of my fears.
The cliché quote that literally everyone has probably heard is "if your dreams don't scare you, then they aren't big enough" and, to be completely truthful, I had no idea what that meant. Like the anticipation of something, or the fear of being let down, which one are we supposed to be afraid of?
In a sense, I've done a million scary things. I moved to a new state, I moved into a big city, I went to college, I'm pursuing an acting degree. Basically, a lot of disasters could happen along the way. But, those things never really scared me in the sense of "these are my goals, so it's terrifying to have such ambitions." Like, what?
Don't get me wrong, it totally freaked me out to be away from home. I still wish that my parents were less than just a phone call away and that the 405 lead right back home - well, maybe not the inconvenience of the 405, but you get the point.
As of recently though, I kind of think I understand that whole dream cliché. There's a lot of opportunities that come with just simply living, and having a plan. But what happens if you actually do get the things you have your heart set on?
What happens if your reality supersedes your expectations?
What a concept!
And, I think that's the scariest part of life. We don't know what to expect. That's why our dreams scare us. What if something big happens to us? We have yet to plan for what happens afterward!
There's a lot of unknown. And, that's a tiny bit terrifying. As long as we embrace it, we'll all be okay in the end.
For myself, I don't really know what is coming my way. I know it's not going to be on my timing.
There is one thing I do know for sure: a lot of the best things that have happened to me have happened unexpectedly.
