One of my all time favorite quotes is by Ernest Hemingway when he speaks about trust. He says, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
I find this to be one of the most difficult and beautiful things to do in life. To let your guard down and invite someone in, allowing them to take up space in your heart when you’ve always reserved that space for yourself can be scary. Especially when you’ve had people come and take advantage of that territory and use it carelessly at your own cost.
But this is life, is it not? To take risks and big leaps of faith, to put your confidence into something or someone when you’re not entirely certain they are going to be worth your investment. It can be threatening and it’s hard, but despite the outcome, it’s worth the experience, whether it turns out to be good or bad.
I’ve always been one of those people who is either entirely invested in something or not at all. There is never a happy medium. I’m either jumping into a person or situation head first with open arms or I’m reticent and cautious, choosing to take the solitary path.
I think when something big comes into our lives, something that has the potential to really alter our identity in such a way that we would deem it as fate or destiny, we naturally become fearful of this change. It’s as if an alarm goes off and walls are instantly built to protect us from the magic that will spark if we engage with this new presence.
We may fear this flare of magic or fascination because the more divine power this new person or thing has over us, the more we know we can become lost and heartbroken without it. The bigger the love - the bigger the happiness, the thrill and the overall excitement for life is. But with these new, heightened sensations also come a trail of fear trickling behind them – a fear of loss and of learning how to live without these elements if they are to let us down or leave us.
How will we ever know if someone or something is trustworthy or worth taking a risk for if we don't allow ourselves to jump? And why are we always thinking in terms of “what-ifs,” worrying about a potential situation that hasn’t even happened yet and in some cases, most likely never will? Why are we always clinging to the life vest before we have even begun sinking?
I think sometimes the happier we become, the more fearful we are of having things going back to the way they were before. We forget that we’ve been in numerous situations where when things did change and take a turn for the “worse,” we adjusted normally and just fine after some time - and with a lesson attached to the experience.
Life is cyclical, we are always going to have ups and downs, people are constantly going to be walking in and out of our lives and new opportunities will present themselves whenever we are ready for them. This is something that will always be out of our control.
In moments where you feel like you're sinking in your own thoughts, you just have to remember that you are in charge of how you feel and think about things. If you don’t like how you’re feeling, reach for a thought that makes you more comfortable in your own skin.
We are the ones holding the reigns, we are the masters of our ships and the ruler of our domains, it is entirely up to us in how we will experience this life – let’s choose to experience it with as much thrill and potential as there can be, with just a small trail of fear trickling behind that excitement.
