Live scared, that’s all there is to it.
Life’s scary, so let’s stop trying so hard not to be scared, or less scared. Let’s just be scared, it’s totally normal. There’re a million things to be scared of, so it’s pretty useless and exhausting working so hard to be un-scared.
It comes down to this—being willing to live scared, or in hiding from what scares us. Most of us choose the latter option too often—opting, that is, for over-self-protection (and avoidance) from what scares us, instead of plunging into life, into our lives, with Kierkegaard’s fear and trembling.
Unfortunately, we pay a steep cost to over-prioritize safety and familiarity—we tend to live under-adventurous, under-exploratory, under-experimental, overly cautious lives. This can make for quite boring lives, which we often lament without owning how enabling we are of our own oppression.
Now I’m not prescribing senseless risk-taking. There are many foolish ways we can numb ourselves from tedium with self-destructive behaviors that, on the outside, may look bold when, in fact, they’re just plain dumb, or recklessly addictive.
But staying on track—this is a call to arms to embrace what you find scary inside and outside yourself, and instead of suspending your life pending a resolution of your fears, just to say “Fuck it, I’m scared, and here I go!,” knowing that life’s not waiting for us to resolve the shit that scares us, which is unending.
Having said that, I’m a little scared to publish this post, but I’m doing it, anyway.
Fuck it.