Face Your Fears. Risk it All. Earn Your Self Respect.
Every culture has a dragon. Why?
Because every person knows what fear feels like. Every person knows what intimidation feels like. Every person knows what it means to be a coward.
At least temporarily.
We all want something. That big something. The treasure of our lives.
To be a mom. To move to the big city. To leave the big city for those wide-open spaces.
We’ve got to write that screenplay, start that business, ask that girl out above our station.
But we can’t have it. We can’t have our treasure because it’s guarded by that dragon. That fire-breathing, dream-stealing, vigilant and vengeful dragon.
The dragon we have no chance at defeating. At least…very little chance.
So we stay home and carry on our safe, dragon-less, treasure-less lives.
It’s not that we have no purpose all without our treasure. We have our laughs, make our money, raise our families, live a nice life.
It’s just that we don’t feel whole, complete, satisfied, without the treasure. Or at least knowing we tried everything…absolutely everything to get it.
That, we could live with.
But being a coward…as time goes on, we can no longer live with.
So finally, we say it out loud.
“I’ve got do this. I’ve got to try or I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
Then, the push back. From family, from friends, from the spirit world, from our own subconscious.
“Don’t do that. It’s a fool’s errand. You’re walking away from all this for….for what? A shot at some trumped-up, Hollywood-script shot at glory? Bah-humbug. You’re a fool. This is just a phase, you’ll get over it. Besides, have you forgotten? The dragon.”
But you haven’t forgotten.
You know you’ll probably lose.
You might fall along the way. The journey itself is fraught with peril.
And if you do make it to the castle dungeon, the final test, your greatest test, the dragon test, is stacked against you.
So why do you go?
You finally go face your dragon because self-respect among the fallen, is better than cowardice among the living.
So what’s your dragon-guarded treasure? Don’t say you don’t know. You do. It’s just that you’ve buried it down deep within your memory. Or you are flat out lying to yourself out of self-preservation.
So jog your memory with me.
Ask yourself: What pursuit have I been avoiding that if sought after would make me feel like my life really, really counted?
But your answer can’t be of the low-hanging-fruit variety. You’ve gorged yourself on that to the point that a single whiff turns your stomach.
No, this treasure must be fought for. It must cost you something. And it must scare you.
When informed of the rigor and toil and sacrifice required of Jedi warriors, a gifted yet immature Luke Skywalker defiantly responded to his master Yoda, “I’m not afraid!”
To which a battle-tested Yoda responded, “You should be. You should be.”
Luke thought he was showing a sign of courage. Far from it.
For courage is not the absence of fear. It is taking action in spite of it.
Your treasure will require no less out of you.
- What do you want?
- What scares you?
- What internal shift must you make for you to take action anyway?
When you can answer these three questions, you’re ready to take the first step on your journey to transformation.
Will you?