Last week as I was pondering a critical decision, a decision that I had not come to terms with in almost two years, I suddenly found myself gripped by fear. The decision involved my attending a three day seminar in Mexico that I truly wanted to experience. My dilemma was the $4,000 required to register along with the travel and hotel accommodations. I of course was focused on the “perceived” sorry state of my finances at the time and the monkey chatter in my head was deafening. I had wrestled with the decision the week before and finally decided that “Yes, YES” I was going. After reaching my decision I still put off registering and the actual writing of the check for another week. Now the timeline was beginning to push back and I had after all, “Committed” to going. I finally pulled the event up on my computer and started to register only to realize that the cost was actually $1,000 more than I thought it was. My $4,000 hurdle was actually a $5,000 hurdle.
Well, this minor little fact tipped me over and I again put off the inevitable for one more day knowing that the facts and circumstances would be no different the following morning. The next day dawned gloomily after a fitful night of sleep. I got up, showered and sat down with my morning cup of coffee and watched my favorite morning sports show, which lately had become nothing more than one commercial after another and very little about sports. The fear I was feeling was real and as I sat there I realized that that was what my life had been reduced to lately, surmounting one fear after another, while always peeking out from behind a place of false safety. I absolutely hated the feeling. Suddenly I was filled with a wave of nausea and I got up and hastily stumbled towards the bathroom making it only as far as the kitchen sink. There, hanging on for dear life, I heaved my guts out for the next fifteen minutes, whereupon my vision slowly took on the streaked lightning look of my now impending migraine. What in hell had just happened to me? In the course of a half hour I had been sick to my stomach and now was in the throes of a full blown migraine headache, and over what? Going to a conference and writing a check? The worst part of it was I actually had the money in the bank to do this thing I so desperately wanted to do.
I settled back down on my couch and after the worst of the migraine had passed I decided to break down the events that had led up to my wave of sickness. For example what caused me to be physically sick? Well, the answer to that was my fear of writing a check that the little voice in my head said I couldn't afford. But wait a minute! l actually could afford to write the check. The money was in the bank. Well yes, but the little voice in my head kept telling me I was being reckless and that if the scenario I was focusing on in my head actually occurred, followed by an even worse scenario I would end up penniless and out on the street. But wait a minute! Were any of the things that the little voice in my head was telling me an actual fact? Of course not! I had the money, the correct decision was to attend the conference and come hell or high water I wasn’t going to ever find myself out on the street. This was simply my mind creating doom and gloom from nothing. I was reminded of the Samuel Clemens quote, “I’ve had thousands of problems in my life, most of which never actually happened.”
As I sat there I realized that I had been waging a battle of epic proportions in my mind, one so great it had made me physically sick. Now that’s quite powerful, but powerful for all the wrong reasons. I felt silly, but I also realized that this condition had always been with me and had worsened as I had gotten older. My current situation and station in life was the culmination of the thoughts and decisions I had made up to that very moment. I wasn’t exactly happy with my current lot in life and I was serious about leaving old habitual ways of thinking behind. What was the driving force behind my thoughts up to that point in my life? The answer was fear, big bad “FEAR.” Just exactly what was "Fear" I asked myself? The answer was it really wasn’t anything. The fear that I felt pulse through me and the sickness that followed was based on my mind conjuring up all sorts of calamities that simply didn’t exist. This fear was nothing more than the ether located between my ears. It only existed because I fed it the fuel it needed to exist with my misguided thoughts of what might happen, which of course only invited the nonexistent occurrences to actually manifest themselves into reality. Hell, if I could so skillfully create crappy things like that, things that made me physically sick, why the hell couldn’t I focus those thoughts on great things like abundance and success? Now I was really on to something! It boggles the mind to think of what we do to ourselves when we operate from a position of fear. We’re afraid of what others might think. We’re afraid to look bad in front of others. We’re afraid to fail. We’re afraid of what others might say. We’re afraid we’ll let someone down. We’re afraid we’ll look stupid and possibly inferior to our peers. On and on it goes until we’re frozen in place, resentful, desperate and angry. We hear people bemoan the fact that “If they had it to do over again they would have done this or that thing differently.” We also hear people say, “Where have the years gone, I mean only yesterday I was on top of my game and now look at me!”
Well, Life is short and I’m determined to not feed this nonexistent thing called fear again. I truly know that each person’s life situation is completely determined by their thoughts and decisions and never by outside forces or circumstances. I read the other day in "The Travelers Gift" by Andy Andrews the following: “All men are driven by faith or fear-one or the other-for both are the same. Faith or Fear is the expectation of an event that hasn’t come to pass or the belief in something that cannot be seen or touched. A man of fear always lives on the edge of insanity. A man of faith lives in perpetual reward.” Each and every one of us has unlimited potential and it’s virtually a sin not to reach and achieve that full potential. I also know that each and every last one of us can achieve the success and the abundance we strive for if only we focus on what it is we want and not on what we don’t want which of course feeds that thing called fear. I made a vow that day that I was never, ever going to make myself sick again based on a set of circumstances that I created in the “virtual reality” of my mind. I vowed that I was going to pursue my dreams, that I was going to serve my fellow man and I was damn determined to have fun along the way. I had wasted way too much time worrying about what others might think. To hell with them! I have asked that little voice in my head to please “Shut up and don’t come around anymore!” From now on I’m only going to listen to the little voice located in my heart because I know that’s the voice I can trust. Only in your heart do you truly know who you are. Don’t let something that doesn’t exist, except in your mind, derail you from achieving your dreams and becoming the great person you know you can be.
Well, this minor little fact tipped me over and I again put off the inevitable for one more day knowing that the facts and circumstances would be no different the following morning. The next day dawned gloomily after a fitful night of sleep. I got up, showered and sat down with my morning cup of coffee and watched my favorite morning sports show, which lately had become nothing more than one commercial after another and very little about sports. The fear I was feeling was real and as I sat there I realized that that was what my life had been reduced to lately, surmounting one fear after another, while always peeking out from behind a place of false safety. I absolutely hated the feeling. Suddenly I was filled with a wave of nausea and I got up and hastily stumbled towards the bathroom making it only as far as the kitchen sink. There, hanging on for dear life, I heaved my guts out for the next fifteen minutes, whereupon my vision slowly took on the streaked lightning look of my now impending migraine. What in hell had just happened to me? In the course of a half hour I had been sick to my stomach and now was in the throes of a full blown migraine headache, and over what? Going to a conference and writing a check? The worst part of it was I actually had the money in the bank to do this thing I so desperately wanted to do.
I settled back down on my couch and after the worst of the migraine had passed I decided to break down the events that had led up to my wave of sickness. For example what caused me to be physically sick? Well, the answer to that was my fear of writing a check that the little voice in my head said I couldn't afford. But wait a minute! l actually could afford to write the check. The money was in the bank. Well yes, but the little voice in my head kept telling me I was being reckless and that if the scenario I was focusing on in my head actually occurred, followed by an even worse scenario I would end up penniless and out on the street. But wait a minute! Were any of the things that the little voice in my head was telling me an actual fact? Of course not! I had the money, the correct decision was to attend the conference and come hell or high water I wasn’t going to ever find myself out on the street. This was simply my mind creating doom and gloom from nothing. I was reminded of the Samuel Clemens quote, “I’ve had thousands of problems in my life, most of which never actually happened.”
As I sat there I realized that I had been waging a battle of epic proportions in my mind, one so great it had made me physically sick. Now that’s quite powerful, but powerful for all the wrong reasons. I felt silly, but I also realized that this condition had always been with me and had worsened as I had gotten older. My current situation and station in life was the culmination of the thoughts and decisions I had made up to that very moment. I wasn’t exactly happy with my current lot in life and I was serious about leaving old habitual ways of thinking behind. What was the driving force behind my thoughts up to that point in my life? The answer was fear, big bad “FEAR.” Just exactly what was "Fear" I asked myself? The answer was it really wasn’t anything. The fear that I felt pulse through me and the sickness that followed was based on my mind conjuring up all sorts of calamities that simply didn’t exist. This fear was nothing more than the ether located between my ears. It only existed because I fed it the fuel it needed to exist with my misguided thoughts of what might happen, which of course only invited the nonexistent occurrences to actually manifest themselves into reality. Hell, if I could so skillfully create crappy things like that, things that made me physically sick, why the hell couldn’t I focus those thoughts on great things like abundance and success? Now I was really on to something! It boggles the mind to think of what we do to ourselves when we operate from a position of fear. We’re afraid of what others might think. We’re afraid to look bad in front of others. We’re afraid to fail. We’re afraid of what others might say. We’re afraid we’ll let someone down. We’re afraid we’ll look stupid and possibly inferior to our peers. On and on it goes until we’re frozen in place, resentful, desperate and angry. We hear people bemoan the fact that “If they had it to do over again they would have done this or that thing differently.” We also hear people say, “Where have the years gone, I mean only yesterday I was on top of my game and now look at me!”
Well, Life is short and I’m determined to not feed this nonexistent thing called fear again. I truly know that each person’s life situation is completely determined by their thoughts and decisions and never by outside forces or circumstances. I read the other day in "The Travelers Gift" by Andy Andrews the following: “All men are driven by faith or fear-one or the other-for both are the same. Faith or Fear is the expectation of an event that hasn’t come to pass or the belief in something that cannot be seen or touched. A man of fear always lives on the edge of insanity. A man of faith lives in perpetual reward.” Each and every one of us has unlimited potential and it’s virtually a sin not to reach and achieve that full potential. I also know that each and every last one of us can achieve the success and the abundance we strive for if only we focus on what it is we want and not on what we don’t want which of course feeds that thing called fear. I made a vow that day that I was never, ever going to make myself sick again based on a set of circumstances that I created in the “virtual reality” of my mind. I vowed that I was going to pursue my dreams, that I was going to serve my fellow man and I was damn determined to have fun along the way. I had wasted way too much time worrying about what others might think. To hell with them! I have asked that little voice in my head to please “Shut up and don’t come around anymore!” From now on I’m only going to listen to the little voice located in my heart because I know that’s the voice I can trust. Only in your heart do you truly know who you are. Don’t let something that doesn’t exist, except in your mind, derail you from achieving your dreams and becoming the great person you know you can be.
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Years ago a southern comedian and GREAT philosopher named Brother Dave Gardner allowed that he wasn't going to be like the old man sitting in his porch rocker saying, " well, I could have if I'da wanted to..."
I took that to heart and now when I sit in my porch rocker I can look back and say by golly I wanted to and I did! Yeah, I made more than my share of bad decisions but they were MY decisions and I lived with them. But all in all I can honestly say I LIVED! Which is a big difference in just existing.
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