Designing life through Vision, Fear & Faith
I’ve been feeling my feels lately and the things that feel worth sharing I’ll share and today I want to talk about moving through life with clear vision, ample faith and healthy fear. It’s a balancing act that we all make, year in and year out to find the best path for our own best lives. I’ve found that only with a healthy balance of the three do I have my best footing to enjoy a great life.
Feeling the Fear and making choices. Let’s start with the one that scares us the most, fear. When I was joining my fraternity in college fear was presented to me as an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real, and at that time I felt that was a great tool for building resolve. As an adult I actually appreciate everything healthy about fear, it’s great information on my relationship with my immediate circumstances. I lean into fear to figure out the source and then make choices on how to process it. Am I excited? Am I overwhelmed, if so why? Is it a biological impulse or am I scared of shadows dancing on the wall. Ultimately, it’s information warning me to run away or steel my resolve and keep going.
Straight from the Mind’s Eye. In the statement, “you can’t be what you can’t see,” seeing is put at the same level as being, but in this case, vision is not solely dependent on your eyes. I’ve always been a bit of a nerd about people’s stories (hence my journalism background) and I’ve always been one to learn from the experiences of others. My vision for designing and navigating my life is a combination of what I’ve personally seen to be true from my own experiences, what I’ve gleaned from the experiences of others and what I can create in my mind with all the other information. More important than all this information, is using it to design my life and then executing the design. To say it plainly, having dreams for your life is cool, but without vision, plans or action dreams stay just dreams. With vision, plans and action dreams are inevitable goals.
Mustard Seeds can be Big AF. I’ve been a religious person as well as a spiritual person but in terms of life I’ve always been full of faith. There’s too many mini miracles that put me in the position to just exist to show me that faith is real and I’m rewarded when leaning into it. If my vision is grounded in information, my faith is rooted in a lot of things, be it God, the mini miracles and the irrational amount of favor and blessings in my life, all of them leave me feeling strong and able to do anything.
We juggle a lot when trying to navigate everything life throws at us, and despite the head and the heart we still have to make choices. However you go about your life, I hope you’d approach it with design in mind, faith in your heart and with a healthy relationship with the inevitable fear you’ll face. The fear is not always telling you to run away, it’s your body giving you information about what comes next.
