When we arrive on this planet, it seems to me that we are born fearless. It is our journey through life that cultivates strengths and fears, thereby setting us on a path of discovering who we are and why we are afraid.
In our search for self-realization, we might choose to dwell on beauty and ignore fear, which leaves us resting in our sentiments and forever at the whim of whatever triggers our fear. Mounting evidence suggests that facing our fears—whether emotional, mental, or situational—is the most effective way to strip them of power. By voluntarily confronting what we avoid, we learn what we need to know to break the cycle of anxiety and build the resilience to manage difficult moments and move forward.
In the process of facing my own fears, what aided me most was to remember that the little creative, fun-loving kid within me wants and needs adventure for personal growth. Of course, adventure is all about entering the unknown or falling down the proverbial rabbit hole. It seems to me that we are hard-wired to curiously follow the road less traveled. And, as M. Scott Peck stated, “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it, then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
Acceptance of what is, rather than avoidance, is knowledge. We have the free will to choose knowledge. Choosing to face fear strengthens character. As Robert Frost wrote in 1916, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
I tried to capture this great truth in my own poem below. May your own search for truth unveil the knowledge you seek.
Then and Now
Ancient stone faces, hinting at simpler ways,
gaze silently across millennia.
Mammoths of mystery, they call forth curiosity,
a desire to know the truth.
A contemporary counterpart extends
her freedom torch to harbour the tired,
the poor, the huddled masses. She lifts her lamp
so in searching we might find destiny.
Youthful vigor dreamt of great feats and
greater knowing in a heroic search for freedom.
Then, we swam deep emotional crevices
seeking only a place to come home.
Now, weathered and wizened like the ancients,
we float atop the tides of life.
Our deep investigation bears witness,
and beacon-like, we glow welcome.
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