do it scared.

nothing bad will happen in your comfort zone. but nothing good will either.

lately, recent events have caused me to look back on older times, not in the same way as when i wrote ‘i wish i could go back’ but in a more appreciative manner for the way that things are now. i realise that i was wrong to want to undo the growth that i’ve achieved in the last few months of my life. when i really think about the way i was years ago, the girl i used to be feels less like me and more like someone i just used to know, like i was in her science class or something. in a way, i’m thankful that i struggle to the girl i was back then, now i just feel bad for her. i was constantly a nervous wreck, shaky and quiet with a cotton mouth. i was afraid of everything; english class, getting older, the past. i was scared, i still am sometimes.

i don’t remember when exactly i started looking my fears in the eyes. i don’t remember ever standing up straighter, talking louder or being proud. i just remember realising that no one could change my life but me; if only i could have realised this earlier, it would have saved me countless hours in therapists waiting rooms and being lectured by doctors about what it was to be ‘growing up’ as if that was my problem. and i’m not saying i just decided to change one day and voila, i was the new and improved me…it was hard work. but you know what was also fucking hard work - the anxieties, the addictions, the disorders; it was all hard work and maybe that all was part of ‘growing up’ in a disorted, fucked up manner as if everyones teen years looks like an episode of skins. i’d spent so much time digging myself this ‘edgy, avoidant contrarian’ hole that i could keep digging that hole or realise that it didn’t have to be that way.

i just had to choose what was worth my time. i just had to do it. and i had to do it scared.

i had to do it wrong sometimes, backwards and upside down. i had to figure it out somehow. i used to shake in my classes at school because i was convinced i could feel eyes on me judging me but last year i went to a noah kahan gig at the local arena by myself. no one cared. even now, the small victories occur, the right choices happen. you just have to choose to make them.

i’ll tell you a secret, something that no one is supposed to know but i think just might help people; your brain is lying to you. the truth it concocts is not the truth, your feelings are not reality. that hole you’re in isn’t nearly as deep as you’ve convinced yourself it is. there’s nothing wrong with you, apart from maybe being a bit gullible. don’t believe everything you hear, especially if it’s inside your head.

your brain is lying to you and its time to start lying back. tell yourself you can do it, even if you might fuck it up. you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. write the fucking worst poem ever, realise it’s shit then write another one. show up and try. people don’t realise that so much, like a ridiculous amount, of improving and getting the life you want is just…trying. stop accepting the life you think you deserve and start living the one that you want. you’ll only stop seeing yourself as your own worst enemy when you start treating yourself like a friend.

forget ‘deserving’ something. forget ‘being afraid of’ something. ask ‘do i want it?’ and go from there. if you ask god for a saviour, he will simply tell you to look at your hands. so see what you can do with them.

in the same vein, the changes that made me who i am now did not occur in a doctors office, or a self help book and i did not have some movie magic moment where i had a clear moment of clarity. these changes were in everything that scared me, in the challenges i faced, the friends i hadn’t met yet and the experiences i grabbed with both hands. i placed a belief in myself that even with every set back became stronger because i had gotten through it. i’d learned from it and even if something did shake me, i wouldn’t fall apart. i get things wrong, i back the wrong horse and i make mistakes. this is the way the world works. everyone seems to be dying to be someone else but i’m going to live my life even if it kills me. don’t spend your days wishing for things, wishing is wasting when you could be doing. or at least, you could be trying. why would you wish your life away when you could have been living it?

the fear of getting it wrong often dissuades us from trying at all but there can never be failure if the goal is experience; your life is coming from you, why on earth wouldn’t you want to live it? surely, if something is worth doing then it’s worth doing badly.

we’re living in the end times, just show up and see. do you. do it scared.

song rec; shapeshifter - lorde