The year of "Yes"...

I have proclaimed this as my year of "Yes!"

What this means is very much what it sounds like. This is my year of saying "yes" to things I normally would have said "no" to, ignored, or simply blown off due to fear, laziness or apathy.

I've wasted enough of my life avoiding things because they seemed impossible at the time, which in reality were more possible than I gave them credit for.

This stems from my never-ending obsession with my lackluster bucket list. As I try to come up with extraordinary tasks, I find myself glossing over more mundane things, for the sole reason of being mundane. While these things may not have the ritz and glamour to make onto my bucket list, they really shouldn't be discounted.

So with that in mind, I'm done being lazy or scared. Big or small, it's time to say "Yes."

What do I have to lose?

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

"Turn to face the strain." (Yes, I know it's "Strange"-work with me here.)

David Bowie might as well have been singing about me.

It's funny how different people handle the strain and stress of their lives. I've seen folks completely break down and give up, and I've seen tremendous courage rise up from depths of despair I would have thought impossible.

Unfortunately, the Jeff Conway's greatly outnumber the Christopher Reeve's.

In the silence of the night, I've often wondered which I would be if dealt a hand of physical adversity. I never quite answered my musings, since it seemed futile to play such a morbid "what if" game. I mean, what was the point? I was immortal after all.

Funny how things change.

So now's the time to finally answer my silent, unspoken question... Am I a quitter or am I a fighter?

All my life I've leaned towards the path of least resistance but have on occasion grabbed life by the balls and jumped out of my comfort zone. The one time I did go all out, flew by the skin of my teeth and took the road less travelled, I was unhappy with the result. I came to the conclusion that there is obviously a reason WHY the road was less travelled... And that I should have stayed on the main thoroughfare. Since then, least resistance has been my standard modus operandi, so much so that most times I offer less than least resistance. I offer none, and stand perfectly still.

Given this self knowledge, I would think quitting would be right in tune with my usual song and dance. This is why I am so surprised to see the small changes happening in me. Everyday I notice slight differences in how I handle things.

For lack of a better term, or lack of a better cliche, I have been in a decade long rut... While in this rut, I became this lame, timid, shell of my former self. I became the quitter who was afraid to take a risk and, well, LIVE.

I'm slowly noticing that quitter disappear. I don't know if it's being replaced by a fighter just yet, but I do feel it's being replaced by ME. The me I was before. The me that was immortal... with one big caveat: immortality with maturity.

I don't laugh in the face of fear as I did when I was young, but I'm no longer cringing and hiding from it. I'm facing it head-on, acknowledging it, respecting it... Then grabbing it by the balls!

It only took dying to learn how to live again.

"Time may change me... But I can't trace time."

The thing about fear is...

I've pretty much lived my whole life in one form of fear or another. I used to tell myself that the fear was just my common sense keeping me from making stupid mistakes. Now I'm not so sure.

Yes, I will readily admit I was a bit of a risk taker as a youth. I was immortal, after all.

But that's not the kind of fear I'm talking about now. I'm acknowledging for possibly the first time ever, an intangible fear within myself that has kept me for the better part of my life, standing still.

I'm afraid of trying.

I always have been.

I'm far less afraid of failing than I am of actually trying. How weird is that?

Coming now to this point in my life where I am becoming introspective, or should I say retrospective (since I'm looking internally to the past) I am coming to terms with the simple fact that, I cannot afford to maintain this ridiculous fear.

This all comes down to my bucket list.

I've been adding things to my list, that I would feel I lost out on, if I did not experience them before dying, while still being within the realm of possibility. Sure, I'd like to experience space flight, but without Lotto-style funding, that is not within my scope.

I've deciding to also add things that I have not experienced due to fear of trying.

Because quite frankly, I'm tired of living in fear.

If I am going to die, I want to die without fear.