Tired of being afraid? Yeah, me, too

I’ve been writing to myself, “Today I’m going to stop procrastinating and get it done,” for so long that I laugh at myself every time I write it.

I am the king of procrastinators. Which is greater, my fear of living or my fear of procrastinating into the grave?

Wait, what was that book I wrote? Oh, yeah: Refuse to be Afraid.

I confess, in there, that the process of publishing the darn book included getting over my procrastination and my fear of publishing it. I needed to read the book as much as I needed to publish it.

Choose your fear. Then, pick it up by the scruff of the neck, give it a good shake, and drop it in the trash bin.

Aren’t you tired of being scared all the time? I know I am.

I’m afraid the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

I’m afraid of both sides in the great political quarrel.

I’m afraid of a virus, but I’m more afraid of the totalitarian responses to the virus.

I’m afraid of people taking advantage of all the fear to further their own nasty and selfish agendas and kick the legs out from under civilization as we know it, whether it’s to get elected or to topple one government and install another.

I’m afraid about how much contemporary life feels like the horrors in Nineteen Eighty-Four and what we heard about life in a Soviet state.

Mostly I’m afraid of how afraid I am, too scared to move, too scared to pursue my dreams at this late stage in the game, scared I can’t write what I always said I wanted to write.

But even mostlier than mostly, I’m sick of being hamstrung by my fears.

I’m scared of being scared all the time. Aren’t you? This can’t be good for any of us.

What say we promise not to let the fear stop us anymore, you and I?

My first step is posting this post. What’s yours?