Fear

It is almost midnight, and I should be asleep right now, especially since I started the process about 2 hours ago and especially since tomorrow is the first day of my new temp job. But what happens is that often when I lay down, these thoughts start attacking my brain and then one thing leads to another and here I am still awake and frustrated as hell.

Today I finished reading Tuesdays with Morrie. Basically, it is a book of wisdom imparted from a Sociology professor (Morrie) to his former student (Mitch, the author) in the final months of Morrie's life. During one of their sessions, Morrie talks of his most fearful moments when he felt closest to death. The excerpt was so striking, I can not help but share it:

These were horrifying times, he said, and his first emotions were horror, fear, anxiety. But once he recognized the feel of these emotions, their texture, their moisture, the shiver down the back, the quick flash of heat that crosses your brain--then he was able to say, 'Okay, this is fear. Step away from it. Step away.'

I thought about how often this was needed in everyday life. How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don't let those tears come because we're not supposed to cry...

Morrie's approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, 'All right, it's just fear. I don't have to let it control me. I see it for what it is.'

I'm not sure what else to say here, except that I long for days (and nights) when I can be as brave as Morrie and pull on fear like a familiar shirt.