“It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance. It is the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance. It is the one who won’t be taken who cannot seem to give. And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.”
I wouldn’t say that I am a fan of Bette Midler, but I can’t help but agree with the sentiment behind the quote above.
Fear holds us back from a lot of things. We have a tendency to stick with what we know and just follow the routine, but you can’t realize your true potential if you don’t step outside your comfort zone. That’s where great things can happen. It is only when we strive for the impossible that we can experience the outer limits of what is possible.
Two Wheels Bad, But…
I have a notoriously poor sense of balance and it has become the source of ongoing jokes from many of my friends. This can be traced back to a summer a few years ago where I crashed both a Segway and a scooter within a couple weeks of each other. I’m not proud of it, naturally, but I wanted to see what I could and could not do.
There was a lesson learned there about why I should probably avoid things with two wheels. Believe me, I wasn’t exactly confident getting on that scooter for the first time, but I overcame my fear and took the leap of faith. By the end of the day, I was far from being a pro scooter rider, but I was certainly more confident than when I started. And it’s all because I overcame that apprehension and took a chance.
Keep Moving Forward
While it would certainly be bad advice to tell people they should just throw caution to the wind, it is also true that you have to let go. You have to take risks. By being afraid to die, so to speak, you’ll never learn how to live. As cliche as it may sound, life is to be lived and not just passively observed.
You must risk failure in order to achieve any kind of real success. Indeed, some may even say that failure is inevitable and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll also realize that failures are just learning opportunities. Overcome your fears and keep moving forward.
Bette Midler is best known as an actress, singer and performer. She has been featured in such works as The Showgirl Must Go On
As an aside, it’s a little known fact that Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. I thought that was quite apt, considering that I’m in Maui this week on vacation. 🙂
I feel that the effort to try is the most important thing, not the results as you point out Michael. They always say it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. I never worry about failure, I worry about not trying.
I have a lot of knowledge about things because I have tried and failed. I learn from my failures, it makes me better.