Have you ever been caught in a situation where you have to make up your mind about something but it’s just so hard to decide? Today I was just caught in a situation where I had to decide in a very short notice whether to lend money to a friend or not. My initial reaction was sure, no problem. However, as soon as I committed myself I felt a huge cloud of fear take over me and I was panicking whether that was the right thing to do. I was prepared to tell my friend that I change my mind about helping her. However, just as I was about to do that, I decided to seek counsel who astutely guided me to see the situation from a place of love to aid me in making a better choice. Instead of allowing my head take over me to judge the act of lending money as right or wrong, good or bad, what consequences it could have if I couldn’t get the money back etc.., I focused on how I felt on lending the money and not lending the money. At that moment I started to see the issue for it really was about. I felt that if I choose to not lend the money, I would be choosing out of my own fear, my fear of financial insecurity because I fear I wouldn’t get my money back; while choosing to lend the money, I felt that it was more coming from a desire to help my friend than from any fears. Consequently, I chose to lend the money, one because it felt it would be an act out of love, and second, because I couldn’t let myself choose otherwise since it would mean letting my fear dominate my reality when I could just embrace it once and for all and not have to live under its shadow again in the future. Luckily, as with my past experiences, fears do go away once you become aware of them and are willing embrace them, while the opposite is true if you choose to become their slaves by constantly acting them out in the choices you make.
I’m not saying here that it is wrong to choose out of fear, we’re bound to do that every now and then. But it’s like every thought pattern we hold and every choice we make have a direct consequence on our future well-being, and to choose out of fear, especially when you are aware of the fear itself, is like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, pretending that everything’s ok when it’s not. And the snowball keeps rolling, until one day the fear becomes so huge (after having been fed for decades throughout your life) that it bites you from the back, since the law of the universe denotes that whatever you fear you create; or, ten years down the road, you find yourself living in a birdcage, because you become so accustomed to not doing all the things that you’re afraid of, that you become a prisoner of your own fears and beliefs.
So next time, when you have to make a difficult choice, take a deep breath, and see for yourself, whether you’re choosing out of fear, or out of love. The result of choosing out of love is liberating, and I will not dwell on the former any further. You know what I mean.
But if you do catch yourself choosing out of fear, that's alright too, it's just an experience. Give yourself a pat on your back for being able to spot it as is. There is always another chance.
"We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear." - Elisabeth Kubler Ross
(Photograph taken by someone on Flickr. Lovely isn't it? Check out the butterfly it has a long pale blue tail!)
