“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.  The fears are paper tigers.  You can do anything you decide to do.  You can act to change and control your life.  And the procedure, the process is its own reward,” Amelia Earhart.  How often do we stay put?  How often do we not act for fear of judgement or even our own judgement?  How often do we wait for the right time?  To be good enough?  How often do we convince ourselves that we have to stay where we are for the benefit of others?  I am the first person to say we do not operate in a bubble, that our actions have impact on one another.  I am also awakening, specifically to the fact that at some point we have to stop worrying about what is good for other people.  We have to stop worrying about what we look like (see yesterday’s post).  We have to stop preventing ourselves from living because we fear we will never attain what we want or that we will offend someone or prevent someone from getting their dues.  We create all of these obstacles disguised as standards and they all rest in our head.  The reality is they are as flimsy as the paper tiger.  Perhaps fearsome in appearance, but can be destroyed quite easily.  Why do we chain ourselves to the plastic lawn chair?  Because we fear movement.

I’ve spoken before about how taking control of our lives means assuming full responsibility for whatever may come and that is a lot of pressure for some people.  What we forget in that pressure is that we have the option to create.  We can make responsibility about improving ourselves.  About finding a hobby.  About finding independence.  About believing in ourselves.  Once we establish who we are to ourselves, we can take on anything.  Responsibility is a scary thing because the outcome hinges on what we do.  But it’s also the most liberating thing because we can change it as we see fit.  That is the beauty.  We can change direction at any time.  The work to get to the point where we understand what we want to do is the hardest part.  Many of us have to dig through layers of previous junk, preconceived notions, beliefs.  Some of them don’t even seem like they would hold us back.  But once we manage to quiet those voices, we see the truth of what we want.  The biggest paper tiger of all is the voice we have in our own heads.   

Once we act we can’t undo it, that much is true.  But that doesn’t mean it needs to be perfect in order to move.  There are times we simply need to move.  Progress, not perfection.  If we waited for that perfect day, no one would move.  We put too much stock in the opinion of others and he goals of others.  We don’t all have to want the same things, we can simply acknowledge other people and move forward.  While it gets complicated because we are a social society, we do not have to make our dreams contingent on what other people think.  We were given free thought and free will to act as we see fit, not to repeat the actions of others.  All we need is the idea and the courage to do it.  Then we need the fortitude to continue to pick ourselves up every time we fall.  We need to make sure our mind is strong enough to understand that there is no failing, there is only learning.  Keep going because that diamond is within reach for all of us as long as we stay on the path.  Forget the fears, the opinions we create in our own mind, take the chance to learn and rip that tiger apart.