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People are afraid to be themselves.
It’s like they are waiting for permission to follow the path that is right for them.
I see it every single day.
The world has crushed us into timidity. We are told to take the safe and easy path.
We reprimand ourselves before we even begin.
But what the world needs is not for us to fall in line — but for individuals to create new and courageous constellations.
Time slips away from us every day, and every day that we are not who we know we can be, we lose something of ourselves.
I don’t know the answer to finding the one true path. Maybe there are many.
What I do know is that I’m pursuing my passions with everything I’ve got.
Some days, it’s not enough.
I get home from work, and I don’t want to do anything. I spend all day having conversations about mental health, and I feel drained.
But I don’t give up. know I must train myself.
I know that opportunity waits for no one — it must be seized, and so I will seize it.
I want to change how the world talks about mental health issues.
I want conversations to emerge from the daily fabric of our lives, like threads unraveling from a tapestry woven too tightly.
I want more freedom to speak about issues that scare our society.
That’s why I set my intention this year to do things that scare me.
If I’m scared to act, I know that I must act. I know that failing to act will mean failing to grow — and a failure of growth would be a shame.
I need growth like I need food and water. Like I need to read. Like I need human connection.
All humans need growth for self-actualization. We only become what we know in our heart we can become if we act to become it.
Silence and stillness have a time and a place, but it will not change the world.
Only those who dare will disrupt the status quo.
And if, like Heraclitus said, “Nothing endures but change,” then we must change as the universe intends us to change.
The sooner we can get that into our heads and our bodies, the happier we will become.
We can’t let our fears swallow us.
Fear is there for a reason. We evolved because of our fear. We owe much to it.
But we have to put fear in it’s proper place.
If we stand rigid and fail to act, it will break us. If we learn to bend with the fear, then our roots will grow to be firm and weather even the strongest of storms.
Fear is a muscle. It grows stronger the more we work it. Its sinews break down, and in their place grows something stronger and more beautiful than before.
I want to become more than I was today.
I’m scared that I won’t, but still I push on.
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This post was originally published on Medium.com and is republished with the author’s permission.
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Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash
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