Henry James said something like, "What we fear most is life itself."
At 5:45 AM this morning I was driving to the Channel 10 newsroom for an appearance on the morning NBC affiliate business show. It is live and I have been doing it for over 10 years. . At the airport exit and about ten minutes from the station, I started to get nervous. I always do about that point in the trip. "What if I stumble over my words or stutter?" My mind begins to race. "What if I go blank and can't think of what I am to say?"
Well, today I followed those questions with another that went something like, "Yeah, well and then what happens if you do screw up?" The answer was "nothing happens." I suppose there might be a few seconds of dead televison time, but then what? Again, NOTHING HAPPENS.
I understand this to be true in most of the things we worry about. Nothing will happen. And yet, we spend so much time, effort and energy trying to control outcomes. We avoid things for fear that we can't do them well or something will go wrong. We are embarrassed about our lack of ability in some area. We get nervous, we worry, we fret, we attempt to control. All for what? NOTHING. Because not only does anything rarely happen, we can't control the outcome anyway!
And all that fear is really a fear of life itself. Most of the things we fret over are part of life and in reality we have nothing to fear. Instead of fearing today, I watched things unfold. And you know what? Several people have already told me I did a good job. More importantly though, I was able to ENJOY MYSELF HAVING A GOOD TIME. I mean how cool is it to be on live television?
Anyway, thanks for reading.
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One man's effort to develop a spiritual practice
About Me
- Michael Ryan
- Westerly, RI, United States
- That's me chillin on Ipanema Beach Rio de Janiero.
A recent televison appearance on WJAR
Current meaningful quotes
'Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel'
The ACOA motto prior to recovery
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt"
Bertrand Russell
The ACOA motto prior to recovery
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt"
Bertrand Russell
"Every obnoxious act is a cry for help." Zig zigler
"It's a life's work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong. And that is somethin I don't want to be wrong about. " Cormac McCarthy from No Country for Old Men
Currently reading or have recently read
- March by Geraldine Brooks
- A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
- No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
The Problems identified by ACOA
- We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.
- We often confused love with pity, tending to love those we can rescue.
- We lived live from the standpoint of victims.
- We learned to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults.
- We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures.
- We got guilt feelings when we trusted ourselves, giving in to others
- We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.
- We became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.
- We became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions.
- We became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process.
- We would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.
- Having an over developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves.
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