Regretting fear...
"All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are the more they are frightened. The courageous man is the man who forces himself in spite of his fear to carry on."
General George Patton
Now Patton could have been one crazy man, but he did know what he was talking about when it came to things like fear, and in spite of fear, success. I live my life for the moment, and as much as people refuse to believe that I have no regrets, and don't dwell in the past, I really don't. I cannot see the productivity of sitting in my room staring blankly at a wall for hours on end asking myself what could of been. I do not see the point in making something small, out to be something big. I do not see the reasoning behind having thoughts run through your head about a situation that you cannot possibly change.
Whatever happened to acceptance? Whatever happened to hope? Where did these virtues of our lives go? I do understand completely that courage is not simply one of life's virtues, but rather, every virtue, at it's most tested point. Hope, acceptance, and forgiveness are not archaic ideas, they are not something that we use once and crumple up to throw away at our convenience.
What is a person who lives his life in fear? And not the fear of things such as spiders or heights, but rather, fear of regret. Now as previously entered in this journal, I have three fears, but will I ever let them make me regret something? Hell no, I will live my life according to the path that I lay out in front of me. Whether that brings me into perilous torment where my heart will be broken or trust thrown back in my face, I'm still alive. And if I'm still alive at the end of those days, then why can I not appreciate what is ahead of me, rather than behind me? If I were to continually think of my past, then I could not appreciate the present, and that would be a sad existence indeed.
"Taking a new step... is what people fear most."
Dostoyevski
But take the step ANYWAYS! It's not worth it not to. I'm not going to sit in some little bubble of security just because it makes things easier on me. I'm going to take that step, I'm going to take that leap of faith, I'm going to hand my emotions to another human being...and I won't regret it. It is human nature to avoid the things that you fear, but you should never let your fears become the boundaries of your dreams. I have many dreams that I want to do. I want to eventually be in a relationship with someone, I want to travel, I want to get my high school diploma...I want to live. And if fear of all those things will prevent me from accomplishing them, then with all due respect, fuck fear.
There's one thing for sure that I can say without any doubt about fear: Fear loses its ability to frighten, when repeated too often.
Yeah, I know that I've talked about how much I fear love, and having someone fall in love with me, but as my world has been spun around me like a top - in term of emotions - in the past few weeks I have made the decision: If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater. I am not prepared to make that sacrifice. I mean, what IS falling in love any ways?
It is a mystery why we fall in love.
It is a mystery how it happens.
It is a mystery when it comes.
It is a mystery why some love grows and it is a mystery why some love fails.
You can analyze this mystery and look for reasons and causes, but you will never do anymore than take the life out of the experience.
Just as life itself is more than the sum of the bones and muscles and electrical impulses in the body, love is more than the sum of the interests and attractions and commonalities that two people share.
And just as life is a gift that comes and goes in its own time, so too, the coming of love must be taken as an unfathomable gift that cannot be questioned in its ways.
Sometimes, hopefully at least once in your life - the gift of love will come to you in full flower, and you will take hold of it and celebrate it in all inexpressible beauty. This is the dream we all share.
More often, it will come and take hold of you, celebrate you for a brief moment, then move on.
When this happens to young people, they too often try to grasp the love and hold it to them, refusing to see that it is gift that is freely given and a gift that just as freely, moves away.
When they fall out of love, or the person they love feels the spirit of love leaving, they try desperately to reclaim the love that is lost rather than accepting the gift for what it was, then moving on.
They want answers where there are no answers. They want to know what is wrong in them that makes the other person no longer love them, or they try to get their lover to change, thinking that if some small things were different, love would bloom again.
They blame their circumstances and say that if they go far away and start a new life together, their love will grow.
They try anything to give meaning to what happened. But there is no meaning beyond the love itself, and until they accept its own mysterious ways, they live in a sea of misery.
You need to know this about love, and to accept it.
You need to treat what it brings you with kindness.
If you find yourself in love with someone who does not love you, be gentle with yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. Love just didn't choose to rest in the other person's heart.
If you find someone else in love with you and you don't love them, feel honored that love came and called at your door, but gently refuse the gift you cannot return. Do not take advantage, do not cause pain. How you deal with love is how you deal with you, and all our hearts feel the same pains and joys, even if our lives and ways are different.
If you fall in love with another, and they fall in love with you, and then love chooses to leave, do not try to reclaim it or to assess blame. Let it go. There is a reason and there is a meaning. You will know in time.
Remember that you don't choose love. Love chooses you. All you can really do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to overflowing, then reach out and give it away.
Give it back to the person who brought it alive in you. Give it to others who deem it poor in spirit. Give it to the world around you in anyway you can. This is where many lovers go wrong. Having been so long without love, they understand love only as a need. They see their hearts as empty places that will be filled by love, and they begin to look at love as something that flows to them rather than from them.
The first blush of new love is filled to overflowing, but as their love cools, they revert to seeing their love as a need. They cease to be someone who generates love and instead becomes someone who seeks love. They forget that the secret of love is that it is a gift, and that it can be made to grow only by giving it away..
Remember this, and keep it to your heart. Love has its own time, its own seasons, and its own reasons for coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it, or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you. But if it choose to leave from your heart or from the heart of your lover, there is nothing you can do and there is nothing you should do.
Love always has been and always will be a mystery.
Be glad that it came to live for a moment in your life.
If you keep your heart open, it will come again.
But...
We are only human and being thus, we feel. We feel the pain of love lost, we feel the pain of love unrequited, and for some of us, we feel the pain so much that we understand the hurt a person has in his heart to make him climb over a ledge - and jump.
Perhaps it be good that we could just forget a love by defeating our sense of worth and submit that love is beyond our control; that it is a harsh reality of life. But I cannot and, though it hurts so, I am glad of it. Otherwise, love would be just one more corporeal object of life, rather than the enigmatic and wondrous mystery that it really is - gossamer wings, angel hair, soft sunshine.
I cannot because I feel.
If you keep your heart open, it might come again. But it would not be the same - the way you look at life, the way you look at love, the way you look at yourself. It would never be the same.
Learn not to procrastinate the matters of the heart, for eventually, it will come back to haunt you with icy fingers. Instead, learn to feel, learn to cry, learn to embrace and to accept it...
Then learn to love yourself for who you are.
As the incomparable John Barrymore once said:
"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."
John Barrymore
Now that I've realized that most of the time love was the largest regret that took the place of my dreams, I'm able to overcome it. I give the advice to everyone to fall in love as often as you can...no more running, no more hiding, no more lies or deceit or above all else, regret.
"Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind."
C. S. Lewis
When we can all understand exactly what Mr. Lewis was saying, then our world will stop spinning, and everything will suddenly become clear. Life will move in slow-motion, and for once, you'll be able to breath without worry, you'll breath because you can. I may never find the perfect love, but neither fear, nor regret is going to stop me from attempting to anymore.
And on a side note, anyone who is reading this and thinking, well, he's only a teenager, what does he know about love, I cordially direct you to my entry about age discrimination, and smile.
General George Patton
Now Patton could have been one crazy man, but he did know what he was talking about when it came to things like fear, and in spite of fear, success. I live my life for the moment, and as much as people refuse to believe that I have no regrets, and don't dwell in the past, I really don't. I cannot see the productivity of sitting in my room staring blankly at a wall for hours on end asking myself what could of been. I do not see the point in making something small, out to be something big. I do not see the reasoning behind having thoughts run through your head about a situation that you cannot possibly change.
Whatever happened to acceptance? Whatever happened to hope? Where did these virtues of our lives go? I do understand completely that courage is not simply one of life's virtues, but rather, every virtue, at it's most tested point. Hope, acceptance, and forgiveness are not archaic ideas, they are not something that we use once and crumple up to throw away at our convenience.
What is a person who lives his life in fear? And not the fear of things such as spiders or heights, but rather, fear of regret. Now as previously entered in this journal, I have three fears, but will I ever let them make me regret something? Hell no, I will live my life according to the path that I lay out in front of me. Whether that brings me into perilous torment where my heart will be broken or trust thrown back in my face, I'm still alive. And if I'm still alive at the end of those days, then why can I not appreciate what is ahead of me, rather than behind me? If I were to continually think of my past, then I could not appreciate the present, and that would be a sad existence indeed.
"Taking a new step... is what people fear most."
Dostoyevski
But take the step ANYWAYS! It's not worth it not to. I'm not going to sit in some little bubble of security just because it makes things easier on me. I'm going to take that step, I'm going to take that leap of faith, I'm going to hand my emotions to another human being...and I won't regret it. It is human nature to avoid the things that you fear, but you should never let your fears become the boundaries of your dreams. I have many dreams that I want to do. I want to eventually be in a relationship with someone, I want to travel, I want to get my high school diploma...I want to live. And if fear of all those things will prevent me from accomplishing them, then with all due respect, fuck fear.
There's one thing for sure that I can say without any doubt about fear: Fear loses its ability to frighten, when repeated too often.
Yeah, I know that I've talked about how much I fear love, and having someone fall in love with me, but as my world has been spun around me like a top - in term of emotions - in the past few weeks I have made the decision: If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater. I am not prepared to make that sacrifice. I mean, what IS falling in love any ways?
It is a mystery why we fall in love.
It is a mystery how it happens.
It is a mystery when it comes.
It is a mystery why some love grows and it is a mystery why some love fails.
You can analyze this mystery and look for reasons and causes, but you will never do anymore than take the life out of the experience.
Just as life itself is more than the sum of the bones and muscles and electrical impulses in the body, love is more than the sum of the interests and attractions and commonalities that two people share.
And just as life is a gift that comes and goes in its own time, so too, the coming of love must be taken as an unfathomable gift that cannot be questioned in its ways.
Sometimes, hopefully at least once in your life - the gift of love will come to you in full flower, and you will take hold of it and celebrate it in all inexpressible beauty. This is the dream we all share.
More often, it will come and take hold of you, celebrate you for a brief moment, then move on.
When this happens to young people, they too often try to grasp the love and hold it to them, refusing to see that it is gift that is freely given and a gift that just as freely, moves away.
When they fall out of love, or the person they love feels the spirit of love leaving, they try desperately to reclaim the love that is lost rather than accepting the gift for what it was, then moving on.
They want answers where there are no answers. They want to know what is wrong in them that makes the other person no longer love them, or they try to get their lover to change, thinking that if some small things were different, love would bloom again.
They blame their circumstances and say that if they go far away and start a new life together, their love will grow.
They try anything to give meaning to what happened. But there is no meaning beyond the love itself, and until they accept its own mysterious ways, they live in a sea of misery.
You need to know this about love, and to accept it.
You need to treat what it brings you with kindness.
If you find yourself in love with someone who does not love you, be gentle with yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. Love just didn't choose to rest in the other person's heart.
If you find someone else in love with you and you don't love them, feel honored that love came and called at your door, but gently refuse the gift you cannot return. Do not take advantage, do not cause pain. How you deal with love is how you deal with you, and all our hearts feel the same pains and joys, even if our lives and ways are different.
If you fall in love with another, and they fall in love with you, and then love chooses to leave, do not try to reclaim it or to assess blame. Let it go. There is a reason and there is a meaning. You will know in time.
Remember that you don't choose love. Love chooses you. All you can really do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to overflowing, then reach out and give it away.
Give it back to the person who brought it alive in you. Give it to others who deem it poor in spirit. Give it to the world around you in anyway you can. This is where many lovers go wrong. Having been so long without love, they understand love only as a need. They see their hearts as empty places that will be filled by love, and they begin to look at love as something that flows to them rather than from them.
The first blush of new love is filled to overflowing, but as their love cools, they revert to seeing their love as a need. They cease to be someone who generates love and instead becomes someone who seeks love. They forget that the secret of love is that it is a gift, and that it can be made to grow only by giving it away..
Remember this, and keep it to your heart. Love has its own time, its own seasons, and its own reasons for coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it, or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you. But if it choose to leave from your heart or from the heart of your lover, there is nothing you can do and there is nothing you should do.
Love always has been and always will be a mystery.
Be glad that it came to live for a moment in your life.
If you keep your heart open, it will come again.
But...
We are only human and being thus, we feel. We feel the pain of love lost, we feel the pain of love unrequited, and for some of us, we feel the pain so much that we understand the hurt a person has in his heart to make him climb over a ledge - and jump.
Perhaps it be good that we could just forget a love by defeating our sense of worth and submit that love is beyond our control; that it is a harsh reality of life. But I cannot and, though it hurts so, I am glad of it. Otherwise, love would be just one more corporeal object of life, rather than the enigmatic and wondrous mystery that it really is - gossamer wings, angel hair, soft sunshine.
I cannot because I feel.
If you keep your heart open, it might come again. But it would not be the same - the way you look at life, the way you look at love, the way you look at yourself. It would never be the same.
Learn not to procrastinate the matters of the heart, for eventually, it will come back to haunt you with icy fingers. Instead, learn to feel, learn to cry, learn to embrace and to accept it...
Then learn to love yourself for who you are.
As the incomparable John Barrymore once said:
"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."
John Barrymore
Now that I've realized that most of the time love was the largest regret that took the place of my dreams, I'm able to overcome it. I give the advice to everyone to fall in love as often as you can...no more running, no more hiding, no more lies or deceit or above all else, regret.
"Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind."
C. S. Lewis
When we can all understand exactly what Mr. Lewis was saying, then our world will stop spinning, and everything will suddenly become clear. Life will move in slow-motion, and for once, you'll be able to breath without worry, you'll breath because you can. I may never find the perfect love, but neither fear, nor regret is going to stop me from attempting to anymore.
And on a side note, anyone who is reading this and thinking, well, he's only a teenager, what does he know about love, I cordially direct you to my entry about age discrimination, and smile.