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"And then the fear stops you dead in your tracks... But it's not the fear of the unknown. You know the outcomes; sink or swim, fall or fly. It's not even the fear of failure, although you'll say it is. You've fallen before - you know that you will get back up. What really scares you and holds you back, is the fear that you may live your whole life never having given yourself the opportunity, the chance, to fly."
Dreams, goals, ambitions. We all have them. Whether they be grand ideals of changing the world or simply managing to get out of bed today, we all have something we are reaching for. Some people may have already reached one or more of their goals - they learned to drive and bought a car. They got that promotion. They made and ate a healthy meal. Some may still be working towards it, tirelessly studying for their perfect career or saving for that house, that holiday, that wedding.
And then there are some that are stuck, longing to pursue, longing to move forward with their endeavours but the fear holds them back. Instead they stand frozen at this junction in their life, at the edge of the cliff, nervously peering over the edge and glancing back, too afraid to take the leap. The waves of worry crash into the rocks below; "what if I'm no good? what if I can't do it? what if I fail?" These doubts are reinforced when we remember other times we have failed, or seen others fail.
So we think it is the fear of failure that is stopping us. We are too afraid to jump because we may fall. We have fallen before, after all, and it hurt. We remember the humiliation, the shame. Self-critique sets in and the pain from the negative narrative in our mind can be unbearable. Focusing more on our insecurities, we forget the other side of the truth coin - that yes, we have failed, we have fallen in the past. But we got back up! We bounced back, no matter how long or difficult the path was, we got up and we are here now. At this cliff edge, facing the vast ocean and sky of opportunities.
But the pain was too much, so we turned away.
Behind us lies the green grass of comfort. It's familiar, it's safe. It's so easy to go back the way we came. Sure, that's not where our dreams live, we can't reach our goals by going backwards, but we've grown accustomed to it. We may not always be happy there, we may have moments of longing for more, but it's far from unpleasant. We don't mind it. We know that place so well and there are no surprises, no uncertainty, no fear... or so we think.
The fear probably won't creep up on us as we walk back down the hillside. We made the right decision, we're safe. I doubt it will sneak out of the bushes on our drive home. We're happy with our choice, it was for the best. It might turn up at our doors unannounced tomorrow, or the next day, or in a month's time. Maybe years and years of complacent comfort could go by and we might not have even given that moment on the cliff edge a second thought. But one day, it will rear it's head.
Many have said that in later life, it's not the mistakes they made or anything they did that they regret. It's what they didn't do. It's the chances they didn't take, the opportunities they let slip by. They had occasion to jump and they didn't. They were too consumed with thoughts of the waves below and the grass behind that they forgot their motivation to look upward and forward to the skies. They missed the birds soaring. They missed their chance to fly and now they sit with their regret, wings clipped.
It doesn't have to be that way. In that instance atop of the cliff edge, we can flip that coin over and remember that we have fallen before BUT we got back up. We can close our eyes, take a deep breath, spread our wings and go for it! Sure, we could still fall into the sea beneath us, gasping for air as the waves hit us from all sides. It could be hard, really hard. The tide could carry us away and we wake up washed up on a desert island, we could even sink to the bottom of the ocean.
But do you know what? No one's ever been to the bottom of the ocean. Who knows what opportunities lie there? What if we make an amazing discovery? What if we build something for ourselves? How proud would we feel? What if the desolate island we find ourselves stranded on is a secret gold mine? What if this is the perfect set of circumstances that we didn't even know we needed?
What if it's not? What if we just fall and crash into the rocks? Well, we will get back up, a little more bruised, a little more worse for wear, but we will because we have before and we will again. We'll try again. They say it's better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. So we'll keep trying. And if we keep falling we'll learn how to swim better. We'll learn how to climb better. We will learn from our failures and we will keep trying because what if, just what if... we fly?