Sky Diving and Other Terrifying Things

A good friend of mine once told me that my life was governed by fear and she wished that would change.

It was one of those statements that hits you full in the solar plexus.  After knocking the breath out of you it worms your way up past your heart and settles deep in your brain.  You deny this thought and you bury it deep in the layered, complex organ that is the brain and try to forget about it.  But inevitably, throughout the course of events, it pops up again, shorting out your mental circuits and bringing you to a cognitive halt.  You examine that statement for truths; reflect on if the events in your life either live up to the statement or refute it, and then you do your best to bury it again. You reboot the system, and continue with the status quo.

As I said, thoughts like these do not stay buried, and they refuse to leave you in peace; you eventually have to take that statement out of your mental vault, sit down with a good cup of tea (or gin), and examine the truth in it that is making those words impossible to forget in the first place.

It turns out this good friend of mine was right. Fear did rule my life.
Fear of disappointing people.
Fear of letting people down.
Fear of failure.
Fear of doing the wrong thing or making the wrong choice.
Fear of spiders, heights, and large social gatherings.

Well, a little more than a year ago, I decided to try and stop this.  You can't help being afraid of things.  But you can help how much you let that fear influence your decision making.  Or deciding not to allow it to affect your peace of mind.  And that is the change I was determined to make.

I can't say I've been 100% successful.  If my life has been governed by fear, well that governing body has been ruling the system unchecked for 28 years, so change is gradual.  Like saying "no" when I don't want to do something instead of agreeing to do it just because I am afraid of disappointing someone.

And then sometimes this change is a tad drastic.  Which is why in a few weeks I will be throwing myself out of a perfectly good airplane (blog post about that will follow--hopefully) strapped to the back of a professional, and attached to a parachute (and probably just a little drunk).

Am I excited about this? Yes. And also no.  I am terrified.  I am omgomgomgomg-what-am-i-doing-piss-my-pants-terrified.  But it's something I've been thinking about doing for a few years now (actually, ever since my sister told me that I would never do it--implying that I was too afraid.  Or maybe her statement was implication-free, but that's the message I received).  So when one of my co-workers mentioned wanting to go, and I mentioned a similar desire, we booked it.  It's happening. Because I refuse to be too afraid to do it.  Maybe that's stupid.  The Fear agrees that it is stupid.

I'm not going to lie, if I were to do something this terrifying again, I would probably not book it two months in advance.  Two months to wonder what the hell I was thinking.  Two months to tempt me into backing out of it.  Two months for the Fear to make some pretty compelling arguments.  Two months for the Fear to win.

I am not sure (being several weeks from the jump) who will win.  Me or Fear. (hopefully not gravity). I'll keep you posted.