The inner fear
Having glibly dispatched the tyrannies of money and time in a couple of perfunctory chapters – kerpow – it is time to encounter perhaps the most universal barrier of all: the chattering voices in our head. For simplicity, I’ve lumped them all together under the label of ‘fear’. It is essential to untangle actual barriers from the stuff inside our head that forms the heavy weight of resistance. ‘I don’t have enough money to buy a spaceship’ is a different issue to ‘I’m not cool enough to be an astronaut’. Acknowledging the difference is the first step to deciding whether there is actually a solution, or if you need a smaller project to build some momentum (buy a telescope). Many practical obstructions are actually internal dilemmas at their heart. If that is the case, then we can choose to do something about them rather than just feeling sad that we can’t afford a spaceship. While researching this book, I asked on Instagram what was stopping people from living more adventurously, apart from money and time. Amongst the hundreds of answers I received, the same themes came up time and time again. (Read them all at alastairhumphreys.com/thedoorstepmile)
- Illness – a hurdle beyond the remit of these pages. I mention it to remind those of us in good health not to take it for granted and to carpe the hell out of the diem.
- Family – the challenges generally distilled to either time commitments, money, or incompatibility of dreams. The internal aspects included guilt about being selfish, expectations of the perceived way you should do things and excessive caution.
- Pressure – family pressure, social pressure, personal pressure about how you think you should be living, a lack of self-confidence.
- Expectations – feeling like an imposter or an outsider or a fool, feeling the dice are unfairly loaded, perceptions of exclusivity.
- Fear – some comments were on practical concerns (women’s safety, for example). The vast majority were about anxiety, inadequacy, the unknown, the first step, procrastination, ignorance, choosing the wrong direction, comparisons with others, fearing failure and the difficulties of living adventurously by yourself. There was also the fear of the unknown of what might happen afterwards.
Reading through the reams of comments, I felt three distinct reactions.
- Gratitude at how fortunate my own life is. I was reminded of how small my stumbling blocks are compared with many people’s.
- A realisation that lots of people worry waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than me about life and that concerns which stop others dead never even occur to me.
- Reassurance that I was not alone with all the crazy stuff rattling around inside my head.
Many people share the same fears and bottlenecks. This might help you see that your difficulty is not unique and, perhaps more resolvable. A problem shared is a problem halved and all that…
OVER TO YOU:
- What inner fears are inhibiting you from living adventurously?
- Which practical problems are actually covers for more deep-seated vulnerabilities?
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