Fearlessness

Quotes are beautiful things.  I often find when I’m in a place of mental or emotional state that is difficult to explain to my best friend, or even myself that somewhere out there is a quote from someone that seems to accurately describe what I am unable to put into words myself.

One of the best quotes I’ve come across recently has been one that has opened my eyes to see things differently.  This quote talks about fear and the different kind we’re faced with constantly mentions something that I’m particularly fantastic at doing, procrastination.

“A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. “Never leave that till tomorrow”, he said, “Which you could do today.” This is the man who discovered electricity. You’d think more of us would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure. Fear of pain. Fear of rejection. Sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you make a mistake you can’t undo? Whatever it is we’re afraid of, one thing holds true: that by the time the pain of not doing the thing gets worse than the fear of doing it, it can feel like we’re carrying around a giant tumor.”

Meredith Grey - 'If Tomorrow Never Comes'

(Grey’s Anatomy: Season 1, Episode 6)

As much as I’d like to say that I’ve been living fearlessly the last couple of months this quote has told me otherwise.  Just last week I was struck with a terrible funk.  One of those things where there’s nothing I want to do except sleep, wander aimlessly around the internets and watch TV.  Absolutely nothing productive comes out of me when I’m in this funk.  It’s like my entire body shuts down and I can’t function.

Fear of failure.

Fear of pain.

Fear of rejection.

I’ve been in this funk many times before and I realized what was happening by day three.  It might have been all of the recorded TV shows I managed to work my way through or the amount of dust that I see start forming on top of my textbooks as they lay untouched; I knew.  In one of my long sessions of wandering the internets I found myself on Tumblr looking at gifs and quotes from Grey’s Anatomy and when I found this particular quote, it started to all make sense.

These funks I’ve been in before have been a reaction of fear.  There’s the fear of failing that’s constantly lingering in my head whether it be failing that civics exam in senior year or failing at being sociable at the homecoming football game where we defeated the college we had been waiting weeks to play.  The fear of rejection has always went hand in hand with the fear of failing though I would like to think I’ve some what overcome the rejection thoughts in my head.  By far the one that will always shut me down in a heartbeat is the fear of pain.
The most powerful part of this quote is the ending bit. "Whatever it is we're afraid of, one thing holds true: that by the time the pain of not doing the thing gets worse than the fear of doing it, it can feel like we're carrying around a giant tumor."
In the past when I’ve entered these funks it would take me weeks and occasionally months to get out of it. The time that passed while I was in this funk made everything pile up and when I did get out of the funk I was faced with a huge mountain to take care of because I had shut down for so long. There was a point in high school where I was so behind on school work I was being told that I wasn’t going to graduate.  Being told that made things even worse and had it not been for one teacher to sit me down and break down the barrier and tell me I could do it I probably would have let that mountain win.

I’m thinking that my idea of “fearless” needs to be changed.  Instead of thinking of fearlessness as not letting any fear affect my actions and mentality, fearlessness should be recognizing my fears and working at overcoming them to make myself a better person.  I can be brave, courageous, ballsy, spunky or whatever adjectives that describe fearlessness; I can be all those things while facing my fears. Deep down inside I don’t think any of us are completely fearless.

What do you think it means to be fearless?

Jess is Kansas born and raised who has no shame calling “glitter” a color.  As a hospitality student Jess believes a smile can change a person’s day and can be found rambling on her blog, Procrastination Ramblings while also pinning her life away on Pinterest.  Feel free to contact Jess by e-mailing her at thegreenrecipebox@gmail.com.

Want to sponsor and/or do a guest post? Check out my Work With Me page and/or email me at lovewokemeupthismorning@gmail.com