For some people fear is a motivator. It can encourage risks, and excitement, and unrelenting exploration because some people simply don't like to be told no - and fear is often the conservative nun behind her desk rapping her ruler and saying "no, you can't do that." Now, nobody LIKES the conservative nun, but some people sit still and say "yes ma'am" while others jump up from their desks and stare the nun down in defiance.
I've never actually met a conservative nun, but I am reluctantly discovering more and more that I am of the former group. I have lived my life in the safe place, at home in the comfort zone. I have never particularly challenged myself to do anything I wasn't 80% sure I could conquer without embarrassment or failure. Sure, I moved across the country after college and many people have told me that was brave - but I wasn't afraid because I had more safety nets than a tightrope walker. Any situations I've approached were perhaps unfamiliar, but none of them terrified me. None fell into the 'only 50% sure I could manage' category, and if there were too many questions I simply gave up and sat still saying "yes ma'am."
Today, with my options completely open to me and the reservations about what I'm 'supposed' to do with my future fading, I'm recognizing that my life has been led with the assurance of those safety nets, and I'm really not as brave as I've led others to believe. When I read stories that inspire me they generally involve people who took the path that called to them, without failure as an option - those who created a future for themselves based solely on their own determination - not what was safe or would most likely work out. I admire these people because they have something that I do not - the ability to overcome fear.
It is only now, when I must convince myself multiple times daily "yes, I can be a writer" that I am trying to face my fears of failure. I'm not confident that I will someday make my living from my own words, just as I wasn't 80% sure that I could dance for a living and therefore gave up at the first rejection. I wish I had found the guts to stand up to my personal naysayer when dance was the only thing I could imagine fulfilling my life's intent. Perhaps I could have demanded a life of art instead of one filled with wanderlust and wasted dreams. But hey - what's stopping me now from chasing the hours of choreography out of my head and into bodies, or those characters onto paper? The conservative nun will always be there with her ruler and her 'No,' but it is up to me to stand up to her and defy. She's not going to stop me anymore.
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