When Does Life Begin?

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

"We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot."

The words of Eleanor Roosevelt are legendary. And I wonder about the experiences that led her to express so much wisdom. They must have been challenging times . . . intense . . . and a little or a lot scary.

Today, they are words on the page that inspire us, but I would suspect that there were some sleepless nights that grew her wisdom about life and formed what appears to be a formidable conviction to be courageous, take risks, stay strong, and look fear in the face. What an incredible woman.

And although her words are strong and brave, I am assuming that Eleanor experienced her share of uncertainty and doubt. Stopping "to look fear in the face"? You can't make this stuff up. It would be like writing a story about miracles without having experienced one. It would be necessary to have lived through and won this stare-down contest with your scariest demons.

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

I don't like feeling fearful. Probably nobody does. And I avoid it however I can. Fear is one of those queasy feelings that goes straight to my stomach and rests there like an ugly orc – ready to smite me down to smithereens if I steal a glance or try to sneak past it.

Fear is unpleasant, unpredictable, and unlovely. It does not bring out the most attractive parts of me. It gives me cause to doubt my belief that something wonderful is about to happen. It messes with my Chi. It gives me bad advice. It creates anxiety – a feeling that is often a hundred times worse than actually experiencing what is producing the fear.

And fear does not inspire me to lead by example. It overpowers and obliterates all other emotions. It disallows my willingness to take a chance. To do something risky. It is a detour from bravery. It is the absence of love. And without love, what is life?

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, today is a gift." – Eleanor Roosevelt

A gift. Which leads me back to the reminder to do one thing every day that scares me. This is all so much easier to write about in the wee hours of the night in my cozy house than to actually follow through on once daylight peeps over the mountain.

Some days this gesture is a little thing. Other days it is huge. I have never regretted one single thing I have done while keeping Eleanor's words in my heart. I always feel better when I have chosen to beard the lion in its den.

If I succeed, my friends are there to celebrate with me. If I fail, my loved ones are there to help me re-hash the moment with some degree of humor humility. After all, what is failure without a little laughter infused into it?

Nearing the End of the Road

People who are nearing the end of their lives have said that they didn't regret the things they did. Rather they regretted the things they did not do. The very same message in fancier language was penned by Sydney J. Harris:

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."

So when does life begin?

At the end of your comfort zone

Today is a celebration of looking fear in the face and going for it. Pushing past, over, under, or through your comfort zone. If you are feeling a lack of confidence, remember: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." We are as free as we choose to be in the face of fear. By disallowing fear, we invite love to enter. And what an amazing thing this is.

Some days I feel a strange Muse entering my office. Like a sobering, momentous calm has entered the room, and I long for some spontaneity and laughter to overtake the moment. I call these moments my "3:00 in the morning moments." They pop up out of some depths that lie blanketed and obscured during my daily routine.

But these moments have value in that they embolden me with the rootstock courage to be spontaneous, to take risks, to take the chance of making a mistake, "to do that which [I] think [I] cannot." To live like Eleanor and strive toward doing something great.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I want to be wildly unhindered by a lack of regret. I have been accused of being foolhardy and goofy. Ditzy and capricious. Irresponsible and risky. Maybe these adjectives are the encouragement that I need to tell me that I am on the right track, and I didn't even know it.

Today . . . I am going to do something that scares me.

“What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I am familiar with my fears . . . one of them being the fear of failure. There is the fear that I won't have enough time in my life to do all that I hope to do. The fear of not having even tried to accomplish that one dream that lives inside of me.

The fear of feeling regret at the end of my life.

“Never be bored, and you will never be boring.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

And I even have the fear of boredom. That this quiet state of do-nothingness has the power to scare me should maybe be concerning. Still, I do not like the idleness that incapacitates my brain when I am bored. It allows for too much brain ramble that circles back to my fear of failure. I sense a cycle here. Help me out here, Eleanor.

Do I live in a constant state of fear? No. I try not to . . . still, these little nagging doubts linger on occasion. Eleanor believes that we "gain strength, and courage, and confidence" by trying to do something that we cannot do.

“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do …” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Thanks for the pep talk, Eleanor. I seem to need it every day. I love you for all of the strength that you share through your words. It is time to shake things up, go forth, and do something a little scary. Just begin my life now. In this present moment.