Decide without fear

It is the permanence that scares us all


Most people have a hard time making up there minds about what it is that they really want to do with their lives. It took  me a little while to do it, but I did it, and so can you. Earlier this week there was a bunch of things that I wanted to do regarding this one thing that I have dreamed about since childhood, but when it came down to it, I really had no idea what it was that I wanted to do with this idea. It was a close friend who reminded me that I have to make a decision and that I should take care to decide upon the one thing that I want to happen. It was not that hard to do, really, but it was daunting as there were, or at least I thought, many things that I wanted, but none more than the chance to give the people of my town - Pomona, California - a reason to dance, a reason to be, a reason to be joyful.

When it came right down to it, I knew then what I have known for so long  that if I could have managed to, I would have kicked my own ass for taking so long to decide upon one thing. At first I thought I wanted it to be big and far reaching, and it will be, but the things that I was thinking were just preposterous. They were doable, but in the long run. It was never that I would not be doing all those things that I had sitting in my mind, but that I wanted them all right now. I had to decide to decide, and so decide I did.

It was really not that hard to do, and, in fact, took a lot of weight off of my shoulders. My demeanor  is not what  it was for months, and my thoughts were no longer muddled with confusion about where to start or even how to start. After I'd decided upon one singular thing it seemed as though my thought about that one important thing began to live and breathe on their own, just like they are supposed to. I was suffocating my own dreams, taking away from the core thing that I am trying to get out into my community.

The decision was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it was very liberating, and even now it has a life of its own.

It is not that difficult, but is truly life altering


For months I have been ruminating about what it is that I want to do with my life. None of us really knows what each of our singular purpose in life is, and neither are many of us too interested in finding out what that is. There is, though, an entire segment of the populace who knows what they want. The problem is not not knowing what we want, but deciding when it is that we will pursue it.

I won't lie to you - I am terrible at making decisions, because a lot of times I have made decisions that have altered my life in ways that I cannot even explain, and normally it was because someone else planted the idea in my head that I should do this, or that, or something else. And all the while that I contemplate these suggestions I have that uneasiness in my stomach - the gut reaction - that I should  heed. Lots of times I do, but when it comes to making gigantic, evolutionary decisions, I am a chicken shit. I don't want to fail, and I don't want to feel like I am being forced by someone else's ideals. When I make any decision, I want it to be all my own.

Don't be a big ol' chicken turd


It was earlier this week when I was smacked with the hot spatula of truth, and even though it bugged a little bit, the truth was that I needed to decide, to be clear on my intentions, because for a long while now, I have been anything but clear. I have been sitting in between fear and indecision. One day I wanted this, the next I wanted that, and at the very end of it all, neither were the answer because deep within me there was this fear that told me that my idea was going to fail, that what I so badly want to do is not what everyone else is going to want to do also. I had to release the fear of failure. I had to let go of the 'what if' and embrace the 'what if you don't..." and it was not an easy thing to do at all, releasing the fear.

I had to really look at what it was that I want to do and I had to think about it deeper and longer than I had in months, but when it came down to it, I knew that the thing that was left, the only thing left, in fact, was the decision to act and forget about the 'what if.' I had to think "what if I don't go for it? I will  never know what it is that I am capable of." There is always going to be that fear of failing, that thought in my head, your head, everyone's heads that make us crazy with fear, with the idea that we are nothing more than here to fail so as to learn.

I had to face up to the fact that I was talking about doing and not doing. I had to swallow the reality that I have great ideas, but until they are acted upon and until they are no longer feared, they were never going to be anything more than only great ideas, and great ideas that stay only great ideas are only thoughts that will never be anything but thoughts.

Do not fear the failure that has not been yet


Many times people forgo their dreams and never truly find out what they are capable of, and this is really sad because the world is losing out on what could be but what will never be, and it is because we are all scared to make a decision. Think about the last time you were in a Las Vegas buffet line and how all those people decide what they want to eat. I mean, there are a plethora of choices, and it shouldn't be that difficult, but it is.
We all do it - we wonder what takes so long when trying to see a dream to fruition, but then we take our time to make a solid decision.

We cannot continue to make making decisions for our lives and toward our purpose the thing that cripples us. If any one of us took a minute to stop and really ponder our surroundings, we would be able to see the indecisive nature of humanity. We are so afraid to make a decision that is not the right one that we will decide to not decide. We will sooner save ourselves the hassle of being wrong, stay stuck in the interim between 'yes' and 'no,' between being afraid and being fearless, and we are so busy feeling and staying with that feeling of 'what if' that we become paralyzed by the thought that what we want will come out perceivably wrong.

We can no longer depend on the good opinions of other people


At the end of the day, while each of us lay awake in our beds, and while we think about all the things that can go wrong, we should each take that time to stop ourselves and ask why it is that we are shooting ourselves out of the sky before we even take the leap of faith and try something that might make the difference in our lives between living and surviving. Surviving is something that critters do, but surviving with style is something that human beings are supposed to do, but we are so worried about what other people think of us that we cannot bear the idea, inherently, not only that we will not live up to their expectations of us, but more, that we will have to deal with our own thoughts should we fail.

Many times  in life we have stopped ourselves short of having what we want because we are so worried about what other people will think. I have been guilty of this lately, and it is because I cannot bear the idea of not bringing my dreams to fruition in completion the way that I visualize them all, and they are some pretty big dreams, I tell you what.

Yet, they are not dreams which are not able to come into reality

You should go for it, really


Whatever it is that you were intended for in this life you will end up doing no matter what. How you get there is yours, and that is where we all falter. If we can daydream, we can certainly see to it that what it is that we want to do in contribution to the world has meaning enough for us to want to at least decide to do it.

You should go for it, really, because there is no one else in the universe who is supposed to do it and you know that there is no one on the planet who is able to do it the way that you can.

Now, if I can just find someone who can give me use of a building, another person to lay a wooden dance floor on which my students can release their own fears on, and one more person to put up mirrors on the walls, and one to install the lighting, another to install a sound booth and recording studio, and yet another to ...

...ahhhh....fear feels good when it is sliding off of you like water off of a duck's back!



...Roxanne...