You've heard the cliché:

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take".

There are so many others like this. Inspirational quotes about not giving up and how you'll only regret the chances that you didn't take in life. There's a reason that these phrases become clichés that are overused and repetitive. It's because they're true. More often than not, you will look back on your life and wonder how things could have been if you had lived differently rather than kicking yourself for taking risks and failing in the process.

Personally, I struggle with this. I'm not a person that walks around with a lot of regret about the 20 years of life that I've lived, but I do find myself being afraid of trying things out of fear of failure. Sometimes I feel safer just sitting around and doing nothing because then I know that I can't mess anything up or have to fear rejection or failure.

It's pretty easy to think that that's a good way of life. But looking at that now, I realize that it's not much of a life at all to sit around and just let things happen to you. It's actually a sad and empty kind of life to live.

I am in the middle of the biggest struggle with this in my life right now. I'm here, living with my parents, finishing up my time at a community college with no idea what is next for me once I get my associate's degree. I returned here because I felt wrong being in Eau Claire not having an idea what to do when every inkling of direction that I had faded.

But now, I'm seizing up. I'm afraid of picking a field and being stuck doing something for the rest of my life that I might not even like. There are a lot of unknowns. Somehow, it feels like I can just delay making that decision and everything will just stay as it is. I know I'm foolish in thinking that way.

The other day, I was getting lunch with a friend of mine, and I was sharing all of these concerns with him. After hearing what I had to say, he literally told me, "The worst thing you can do is do nothing".

And it's totally true.

Time won't stop just because you don't want to make a decision or you're afraid of moving forward because the future might be a bumpy road and you will fail sometimes.

You will regret those chances you don't take if you sit and hide and put walls up throughout your whole life.

I'm realizing this day by day.

Life will keep moving whether I'm ready or not. And if I stumble and fall at certain points along the way, so what? Life is meant to have it's ups and it's down. You can't have the hills without the valleys.

Even though you might trip and fall on your face, rolling down that hill, in the end it's better than sitting on a straight line.