Thought Picnic: What was I afraid of?

Reviewing life

As I made for work this morning, I read a news report in the Metro News free newspaper where William Shatner, Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame was interviewed.

At the end of that interesting interview of a man of 82 good years of excitement they returned to what he proposed as his epitaph, “What was I afraid of?”

Indeed, one does ask, where Captain Kirk travelled light-years on futuristic spacecraft at warp speed, meeting civilisations that fuelled the fantasy with imagination, the real life William Shatner declined an offer to travel into space because he was afraid.

Breaking away from hindsight

It is unlikely even if he has overcome that fear now that he would be considered travel worthy of a space odyssey, however, a greater lesson is available to us.

We must ask now, what we were afraid of, what we are afraid of or what we might become afraid of, for all sorts of reasons and do well to overcome the terrifying bondage of fear and release ourselves into the beauty of expression, the exhilaration of adventure and the joy of fulfilling relationships.

Breaking away from my fears

I see that in myself, the fears, the worries and the concerns that burden me by reason of experiences bad and horrid of my past, that moderate my current outlook and sometimes prevents me from launching out into the amazing wonder of enjoying my life as best I can, living to the full.

As I make do rather than make out, survive rather than thrive and restrain rather than let loose, let go and fly free, innately, I am afraid of many things, unspoken and undone, waiting for some opportunity or situation that may never come as I prepare myself for avoidable regret.

Break free from fear

One must talk to oneself, because the freedom we grant ourselves in refusing to be gripped with fear, the fear of people, the fear of society, the fear of shame, the fear of fear itself might yield a new kind of person, one you never knew you were until you let go.

The question when the reckoning is done, if we get to be interviewed like William Shatner is not to be faced with, What was I afraid of? We must from now begin to change that to, “I was afraid of nothing, I lived life to the full.”