Lessons In Being Human; No. 3

You are standing in front of an unlocked door, you only have to open it and step through to see the possibilities, good or bad. Most of us have a hard time thinking it can’t be that simple. But why? Because between you and that door are all the multitude of people you’ve ever known, loved, and watched, telling you why you should or shouldn’t walk through that door.

No one ever tells you that the moment you place your hand on that door, what happens next is completely uniquely up to you. The sum of all your parts, your experience, your character, your means and resources, every bit of who you are is reconfigured into a custom outcome that only comes into being when you, and you alone, open that door; a journey that only you can take.

We are communal creatures, we value learning from the experiences of others, and while that is one of the finest traits we possess, it is also one of the greatest impediments to our growth, our drive, and our ability to go further than those that came before us. You are the only version of you that ever existed, you contain a multitude of possibilities that never existed before, and that never will ever again.

I don’t advocate for blind optimism either, or putting all your faith and hope in someone or something outside of yourself. Somehow that simply feels like not acknowledging the weight of accountability and responsibility it takes to birth your dreams into reality. While the fear of failure is palpable and strong I wonder how many people have actually failed so badly in the pursuit of their hopes and dreams that it warrants warding off everyone else from even trying?

You’ve also likely heard, “it’s all been done before,” or “there’s nothing new under the sun,” and for some that’s more than enough to stop them in their tracks. It reinforces single-mindedness and denies you the right to share your unique voice, it plays on your insecurities. It makes you feel like an imposter.

I know the crippling feeling of having something to do, or something to say, but holding back out of fear that you are not the right person to contribute this to the universe. What I also know is that in order for me, in order for us, to overcome this block, we have to write about it; we have to talk about about it; we have to solve it.

By default we’re more likely to view challenges as insurmountable; programmed to see all the faults as unfixable; we dwell on the negative. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that in itself, but after all, all it takes is one person to believe in you, to push you, to pull you through your own doubts and fears, to open that door.