Attempting to Scare My Socks Off

I read in an email newsletter this past while, that one great way to bring more fulfillment, meaning and depth to your life is to do one thing that scares you, every week.

This past, few weeks, I think I'll have a few months covered.  It's just one of those times.

Without boring you with all the crazy details of my weeks, I'll just tell you of one thing that scared me, that I did on purpose.  After all, that was more the intent of the article.  Things you merely survive don't often give depth, meaning and fulfillment in quite the same way as choosing to try to face a fear and conquering it.

For quite a while (read: most of my life), I've felt that by sharing the trials and challenges of my life, I might be able to comfort, teach or inspire another, or others, who might be struggling with similar or other challenges.  Humans are social and communal creatures; we all have a need to feel we aren't alone, and this is especially true when it comes to facing challenges and pain.

So, I was chatting with a friend via a certain social networking site which I won't name out of concern that some big whig would come along and chew me out (at best) and while this post is about doing things that scare us I'm not that crazy so I think I'll just continue with the paragraph as it should be and not just one long run-on sentence that is almost entirely tangential and SoCky which is really cool but not the point.  To make this an actual paragraph I'll even throw in another sentence while I try to remember where I was going with that. *scrolls up* Oh yeah.  Talking with a friend via the internet in some form.

As this friend and I were discussing Life, the Universe and nothing in particular (thanks go to that guy who wrote that book from which I hinted at that possible reference but didn't really except this just now if it actually counts), we ended up sharing the links to some rather fascinating, if not somewhat revealing, sites about a subject close to my life.

Why is that a major part of this post?  Mostly just because I chose my fear-facing thing based on it.  And I decided to post the links to said sites on said not-said web interconnecting-people-type site.

And while for some, sharing something like that doesn't seem to be that big a deal . . . those some don't really know/understand me.  I'm actually rather shy about sharing stuff about myself, and so when I do a post, either like this or like the ones I've shared on the personal page of said not-said site, I tend to keep it vague.  The fact that I was less-so this time, is one small step for me, but one large step for no one in particular.

So . . . does it matter that I overcame this 

seemingly-small-in-the-grande-scheme-of-things thing?

 

Maybe so.

Maybe not.

Maybe so not so.

Maybe not so not.

Maybe I SoCked again.

Oops.

Okay, well just so you know, I also take a step toward overcoming fears when I post stuff like this.  I mean . . . letting the whole world get a glimpse of what goes on inside my head?  How scary is that?  And for you, too!  Reading what silly insanity goes on behind the cool, collected exterior--okay, no, I just can't finish that sentence over the loud snorting and laughter of anyone who knows me better.  But still, not everybody has the courage to read the inside of someone else's mind.  So I congratulate you on making it through possibly a rather frightening (for someone) post!

And I now return you to your otherwise-ordinary, internet experience.

~ me