We think the opposite of love is hate… but it isn’t. The opposite of love is fear.
My husband and I live by the most beautiful, public golf course. We recently discovered that in the evenings, this golf course transforms into the best unofficial off-lease dog park. On one side, as the sun sets, you can see the entire city scape light up while the mountains behind it turn to silhouettes. On the other side, complete open sky. As the sun drops behind the mountains, rays of purple, pink, orange, red, and coral light up everything.
Standing in the middle of this golf course, watching the sweet pups burn off their demons, we’re surrounded by beauty as far as the eye can see.
…this is where my soul feels at rest.
That’s how we try to end most nights …especially on the most difficult days. Something about it renews our sense of hope and wonder and gives us the ability to continue to dream.
That’s what made one particular night so special. It was preceded by this: Mike and I had been agonizing over making a really tough decision. We finally both said, “enough is enough!” We realized that we had been approaching the solution to our challenge from a place of fear. In fact, we realized that we had been approaching most of our decisions over the last few years from that same place. While to some extent, it seemed justifiable – we had been forced to face depths of pain and loss that we previously wouldn’t have believed possible – it just wasn’t conducive to the people we wanted to become. Allowing fear to be our foundation, stifled our hopes and dreams and stopped us from fully embracing the lessons we had so painstakingly learned. That day though, we decided to re-approach the solution to our problem through the eyes of love. Instead of battling the negative voices in our heads, we decided to take a leap of faith. We stopped asking, “What if things go wrong?” Or “What if we make the wrong decision?” and we started asking, “Who do we really want to be?” And “In 40 years, how would we want to look back on this decision?” Through those changes, it was almost as if we had instant clarity. We suddenly knew that fear could have no basis in our decision. We took a leap of faith, and changed our lives forever.
The magnitude of this realization however, spread so much further than that one decision. We decided that we would approach every new decision in our lives through the eyes of love – even adopting the mantra: love above all else.
Since that change, doors have been flying open and our lives have been changing faster than we know what to with. It’s incredible … and daunting… and exhausting. We’ve come to realize though, that everything in life worth fighting for is.
Do it anyway.
In saying that, (just in case you haven’t heard yet) it is with absolute excitement that I want to share with you, Mike and I will be opening a coffee shop in the upcoming New Year (look for more details in a post coming soon!). As many of you probably know, Mike owned a coffee shop for a little over eight years, selling it a few years back. After he sold, both of us almost immediately missed it… knowing that one day we wanted to own a business again. Unfortunately, me getting sick derailed most of our hopes and dreams. But it did something else for us – it allowed us to redefine our dreams and reason behind them. It also allowed us both to realize how short this life truly is. It became more than just a saying – it became our first-hand experience. And through that experience, it showed us that we wanted more from life. We didn’t fight our way through hell to simply settle or to chase “dreams” as frivolous as money or things.
There’s this quote that I love and it goes like this, “If we really knew how short life is, we would be running with reckless abandonment towards our dreams.” It’s so common to think that we will always have more time …more time to take that trip we’ve always wanted to take …more time to find a career that we will actually love …more time to say “I’m sorry” or “I love you” …more time to become the people we want to be. Sadly, “more time” is not a guarantee for any of us.
Just sit and think about that for a minute. Ponder the person you have become and the life that you have. If today was it, would you be content with your choices? Or would you change something …perhaps everything? We need to stop worrying about tomorrow as if it’s guaranteed. It isn’t. Life is too short to let yourself be defined by the “what if things go wrong” mentality. So what if they do? Then you pull yourself together and find a new approach …because if it’s your dream, it’s worth failing for. Besides, I think the right question might be, “What if things go right?” Are we so used to misery that we don’t believe we deserve the best, most passionate life possible? I know I was. I let misery be my default. I was almost afraid to not feel that dull pain ever tugging at my soul. I was so used to feeling pain in my life that that I had become afraid to feel absolute joy. I was afraid of success. I was afraid that if things got too good, it would only hurt worse when they got hard again.
Fear. What a waste of the precious time we are given.
I was recently listening to an interview with Tony Robbins (I know, insert eye roll here ). In it, he said, “We think knowledge is power, but it isn’t. Knowledge is potential power.” In other words, it doesn’t matter if we know life is short or we know that fear has been running our lives for far too long. What matters is what we do about it. If all we do is stay in our heads and think about …and agonized over …and hope for …our dreams will never come true. We have to take action.
And that’s just what Mike and I have decided to do. I would encourage you to do the same… because life really is way too short. And because you really are far too special to waste so much potential. And because dreams really do come true.
Trust me, I’m living mine.
“This is the beginning of anything you want.” -unknown