"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anais Nin

Trust me to write not only one, but two posts on fear. And I'm only 2 posts in! Over the years, I have realized that being scared makes you miss out on everything that life has to offer...And it simply should not.

There are the normal, trivial things that you can be scared of. For instance: banana spiders, giving a speech in front of many people, going on a hike in a forest full of wild animals, or saying something dumb when meeting someone new—these are rational fears. There is also the important stuff—the stuff that will actually have a large impact on your life—that you can be scared of: starting school at a college that is far away from home, taking a job you aren't sure you're ready for, getting into a relationship with someone new, purchasing something expensive like a house or car, etc. Those things will be different for everybody, but the severity of the fear being felt will be there nonetheless.

Of course, there are valid reasons to hold fear for certain things. Fear stems from somewhere—either from negative past experiences or simply from what you learned as you grew up. But, what's the worst that can happen if you simply take the chance and ignore that fear? I mean, you might get hurt, you might break a bone, you might cry. But the fact of the matter is that you don't know for sure what can happen if you do something that scares you. You might not get hurt, break a bone, cry. You might have the best time of your life. That random chance of having the best time of your life is worth it to me. I hope it's worth it to you, too.

The fear is never going to go away when it comes to certain things, but you need to realize that doing the thing that you're scared of doing is always worth it in the end. I'll let you know if that changes.

Fear is always going to be there. Don't let it scare you into an oblivion, and if you're scared, live anyway. Don't you dare let fear take this world away from you.