This post might need a disclaimer

It's amazing how motivating fear can be. For example, I'm scared to start writing my business plan and meeting with people about my company because that would make it real. Really Real. It would no longer be 'what I plan on doing' or 'my eventuality', it would become my present - an extremely tangible present that would leave me very exposed. Not in the naked way, but in the 'I just told someone I loved them and I'm waiting to see what they say' kinda way. You know - that moment where you have to move forward purely on faith.

I'm not a religious person, sometimes I wish I was because I think it must be very comforting. To give yourself over to a higher power and freely believe, unsupported by logic, fact or empirical evidence, that this higher power will keep you safe. Safe in the way insane people are safe in their minds or in the way small children can be great at sports like skiing because they don't know they should be afraid.  I don't mean to say that having faith makes you a child-like lunatic....I mean that humans are constantly looking to find ways to feel safe and religion is one way to address that problem, just not one that I've ever experienced.

Now if you've been reading carefully you'll realize that I've contradicted myself. I've said that fear holds us back and I've also said that fear is motivating. I think the two points aren't mutually exclusive, but I don't believe that fear is something you should seek out as a means of motivation - fuck, soon I'm going to need a disclaimer on this Blog. "Karina said that fear is motivating so I jumped out of a plane wearing a plastic bucket on my head!" Stupid is as stupid does.

What I really meant before I went off on this tangent, was that I'm scared to take the first real steps towards making my business a reality and in response have completed just about every other task I could think of. I've done my personal taxes, completed my corporate taxes, paid all my bills, fixed up the house, goten a new haircut, cleaned up the backyard and almost completed an insane 1000 piece puzzle. Hence fear is motivating, just not in the way I want it to be. In the end it's faith that really gets us through it.

Earlier I defined faith in terms of love. That's just how I define it; it's different for everyone. I created this whole theory while reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (not to be confused with Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing). In the book Kierkegaard speaks of the White Knight and his journey, all of which is part of his treatise on religion. Eventually the White Knight gets to this place where he has to take a leap of faith. Kierkegaard defines this as the place where logic turns back on itself and the only way to move forward is by just believing that you'll make it. As I said I'm not religious so what I always compare this to is telling someone you love them for the first time. In that moment you're so emotionally vulnerable, and no logic in the world can prove to you that the other person feels the same way - but at some point you go for it and you tell them. If they say it back, you make it to the other side - if they don't, you fall into the abyss. I've done both and there are positives and negatives to both outcomes.

When it comes to our life and what we truly want to do - I think it's about faith. Faith in ourselves and love of ourselves. So I'm working up the strength to tell myself that not only do I 'know' I can do it, but that I also have faith that I will succeed. Baby steps....I think I'll finish this puzzle first.