she almost didn't do it...
The other day, on a late afternoon, Fabi and I took our little niece Anna down a rocky path to the seashore. She was wearing her little flip-flops and a swimsuit.
It's my favorite place to take a swim since the water there tends to be much cleaner than the water at the nearby overcrowded beaches. The only problem is that it's not as kid-friendly.
Instead of sand, there are rocks and sometimes sea urchins you have to watch out for. Instead of being shallow, the water is deep.
But it's just so lovely there.
Anna, though, didn't see it that way. We helped her climb down on a little rocky platform that's about 5 inches submerged and tried to encourage her to just jump into the water from there.
And she wanted to. She really really wanted to. But as soon as we suggested that she let go of our hands, we were immediately faced with a "NONONONONONONO!"
While Fabi was holding her hand, she had to watch me jump in and out of the water at least a dozen times before she could be convinced to even stand on the platform without handholding.
But with enough coaxing, she eventually mustered the courage to get into the water:
Yaay!
And once she was in the water, she loved it!
An hour later we had the exact opposite problem: we needed to convince her to get OUT of the water.
This reminded me of how as adults we also often have irrational fears about doing things we actually really want to. Things we would love if we just gave it a go.
Unfortunately, most of us don't have anyone holding our hands and encouraging us. Instead, we often have a lot of people who are just as scared and who are actively zapping our dreams:
"You gotta be realistic!"
"That will never work!"
"Quit your job? Are you crazy?!"
"You wanna move to another country?!"
"Blogging? Seriously?"
The reality, though, is that Anna's fear of drowning is much more reasonable than some of the fears we have.
Most decisions we endlessly hesitate about are easily reversible. They can often be tried out for short amounts of time without long-term consequences. We can give it a try and see how we actually feel about them.
So, if there's something you really really want to do, but you're too afraid to just give it a go, maybe all you need is a little bit of encouragement. Most things in life aren't as big a deal as we make them out to be. And once we've given it a go, we may like it so much that we'll wonder why we didn't just do it ages ago :)
Comics (and some thoughts) I’ve published recently:
Thanks for reading!
— David
PS: Been busy with taxes this week. Ugh…
I get afraid to do new things - then once I do them, I'm hooked!
Thank you for the reminder and the way you wrote it.