I’ve been thinking a lot since the last blog post I wrote.
People have been asking me what my word will be for 2014, and so far, I haven’t been able to give an answer.
Some considerations were: Courage, compassion, thoughtful and leap – but they didn’t quite feel right.
Another consideration was the word ‘dare’, but I still wasn’t sure.
And so I thought some more.
Thing is, the word ‘dare’ kept coming back to me, I couldn’t stop thinking about. So I did what I always do when I’m not sure about something and wrote it down on a piece of paper over and over until it started to look like I’d spelled it wrong. Dare. Dare. Dare. Dare. Dare.
After a while, it dawned on me that the reason ‘dare’ didn’t feel quite right was because I was scared of what ‘dare’ meant to me.
Dare means stepping even further out of my comfort zone.
Dare means working towards the goals I’ve set myself for 2014, no matter how much they scare the shit out of me right now.
Dare means stepping up.
Dare means not being another brick in the wall.
Dare means trusting the process.
Dare means trusting myself.
Dare means uncertainty, and uncertainty scares me, and when I am scared, I hold back and stay safe.
And yet I know that when I stay safe, my world starts to become very small, with little room for happiness and adventure.
It also becomes very, very boring.
I don’t want a boring life.
So I choose to accept uncertainty.
And dare.
‘Dare’ will be my word for 2014.
I wiped the giant blackboard clean this morning, ready for the start of 2014, excited to write ‘dare’ in the top left hand corner.
The blackboard reminded me of something I saw on the internet once: The Burning Man Festival hung up a blackboard canvas with a great big sign encouraging people to write down and share their fears, in the knowledge that the blackboard would be erased on a daily basis.
I wondered what it would be like, if between now and New Years Eve, we wrote down and shared our fears, too?
I’ve got an empty giant-blackboard in my hallway.
And I’m guessing we all have fears, things we’re scared of.
The giant-blackboard won’t make them go away – only you have the power to change that – but sometimes, just writing down our fears, and saying them out loud, is a way of accepting them for what they are. They’re just fears.
I’ll start.
(My neighbour, who took the photo, added hers too).
At 7pm on New Years Eve, I’ll take a photo of the wall and share it on Twitter and Facebook.
And on New Years Day, I’ll wipe the blackboard clean.
You can share your fear(s) in the comments (anonymously if you like), or you can tweet or use Facebook and let me know what you’d like me to write.
Fuck fears.
Here’s to BIG, BIG, BIG, un-boring lives, full of excitement and adventure.