If we truly
are all one, and I want my life to have meaning, then I have no choice but to step away from my guarded area. I must face my fears of being totally and utterly exposed as a silly idiot fool who’s not deserving of anyone’s love or compassion. I must do it scared.
We all have our cross to bear. My mother always said that to us, and I never understood exactly what it meant. Today, I realize what it means. It means we all have our own unique set of problems that need solving. We have our everyday problems: the dry cleaners are closed, and I need that dress for tonight, or I don’t feel like grocery shopping, but there’s nothing in the fridge for dinner. Don’t get me wrong, I realize these are bougie problems and that I am blessed, and some might even say privileged, but the luxury, or shall we say price, of being privileged is just this: we cannot settle.
If life is not a struggle, we long for it; we even feel the need for it. We need to carry that cross, and if we don’t, if we sit back on our proverbial laurels, we become quietly desperate. Divine discontent, as I once heard it described, is that yearning for more. That feeling of lack, the need to feel alive and take risks. To fulfill our destiny, to follow our bliss. We pick up the cross because not doing so would spell boredom and final destruction.
Therefore, as I see it, the whole purpose of our existence on this planet is to pick up and carry that cross—nothing more and nothing less. Just pick up and carry that cross, no matter how heavy or scary. That’s it. That’s our destiny; until we do that, we will never truly be satisfied.
My cross is vulnerability. In her book “Daring Greatly” Brené Brown talks about how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead.
Some of us go through life scared, some bored, and some of us are just plain miserable without knowing why. The choice as I see it is this: I can stay safe in my cocoon, or I can venture out and express myself as God intended. But that comes with great risk. Risk to my ego, my self-esteem, and all my many other vulnerabilities. In other words, it’s scary as hell! But I must go for it. I cannot spend the rest of my years in quiet desperation. I choose not to be a comfy jellyfish flowing this way and that in the current of my life. Instead, I choose to set a course and sail my ship straight for that unguarded area to prove once and for all that the earth is not flat.
I’m doing it scared.
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