Daring Adventure or Nothing
I recently read a quote that stayed with me more than any other in recent memory: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
In context:
“Security is mostly a superstition… Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold… Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”
A few days later, I spoke to a friend who left the “security” of a successful career to go on a daring adventure and start a new business. She confessed that she felt insecure about something she had to do and didn’t have much experience in, and that was paralyzing her. I am well acquainted with this state. After I quit my last “secure” job and started experimenting with new career ideas, I had periods of endless procrastination. I was afraid that I’d never be good at what I was doing. That I’d fail and look stupid.
I was stuck in the in-between: I thought I chose to live life as a “daring adventure”, but I wasn’t ready to leave the comfort of “nothing”. Yet I knew that if I went back to comfort, I would feel empty with a life of “nothing”. I was avoiding both the adventurous and the mundane.
What finally snapped me out of this paralysis is fully acknowledging that my choice on the “adventure” scale is inextricably linked with my place on the “comfort” scale. I accepted that choosing adventure means being highly uncomfortable (read: fearful, insecure) much of the time.
I believe in the power of decision, so now when I feel paralyzed, I remind myself that with the decision I made on the adventure scale, the discomfort is a given, and that makes it easier to push through. I expect to feel fear when I create something new like I expect my muscles to feel sore after a tough gym session.
Living life as a daring adventure isn’t about not being afraid, it’s about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Funnily enough, the more matter-of-fact I’ve become about the fear, the easier it is to ignore.
Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind, chose “daring adventure”. How about you?
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