Loretta Young woke up like dis.
I’m fighting the receiving hand of death a bad cold, and with the old adage “feed a cold, starve a fever” rattling around my head, it struck me that starving one’s fears was also a wonderful remedy for this thing called life, electric word, life.
Think about it: if you starve your fears, eventually, over time, they’ll have no choice but to wither and die. Meanwhile, your courage should be kept fat and sassy. When your courage asks you if all this achievement makes her look fat, you both laugh, since ambition is the sexiest look ever.
We feed our fears by giving in to them, and doing things, or not doing things, under the influence of our powerful fears. When we give in to the siren call of our fears, and decide not to apply to be a speaker at that conference despite our great presentation idea...or we stay home from a networking event since, well, what the hell would I say, and f**k it, no one wants to help me...when we don’t message that girl on Tindr who haunts our dreams, and dry cleaning bills, and thus remain alone...all we’re doing is feeding our fears.
And fear is ravenous. Fear wants to gulp down everything you have, smacking its greasy lips, constantly looking for seconds and thirds and fourths... Fear will devour your life, belch and still be hungry. Fear starts wars, and kills people. Fear crushes human potential, and gleefully destroys all the best of what could have been. Fear is a cruel needy bitch.
But imagine if you kept your fears hungry, and gave all of your time, energy and table scraps to your courage? Imagine if every time you were offered an opportunity, you told your fear to STFU and grabbed that opportunity for dear life? Your fears would soon be starving, and your courage would be the girl with the most cake... to quote President Trump, wait I mean, that other intellectual of our era, Courtney Love, oh never mind.
Georgia O’Keeffe
“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”- Georgia O’Keeffe
Think of your courage like a muscle: ya gotta use it or lose it, baby. And the more you use it, the stronger it gets. The stronger you get. Things that previously might have made you sick to your stomach now seem within your reach. As your courage becomes more assertive, your fear becomes increasingly fearful...of you. Your fear knows who’s the boss. Don’t feel sorry for your fears: in our lonely, heartbroken world there are far too many people who spoil their fears, catering to their whim. Evict your fears and they’ll find another home, soon enough. And so will you: the home in the life you had the courage to build, fearlessly.