Fear

As you can tell from my entries, I tend to be a collector of clever quotes and sayings (or what I deem clever quotes and sayings). Not that I'm not clever, but I usually seem to find my somewhat rambling and chaotic musings are better reflected and capsulized in the words of others.

Today's find is a short quote by author H. Jackson Browne. "Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is."

I don't really consider myself to be a fearful person. In my general, everyday life, I think I tend to be close to fearless. I'm usually more than willing to have the hard conversations when necessary. I want people to be up front with me, so I try to do the same with them.

There are times though, ususally in my personal life, when I've caught myself exhibiting traits such as indecisiveness and incessent worrying. They seem to center around my concern on how my words and actions will be taken, interpreted by the person I'm interacting with. And this, of course, stresses me out. My suspicion is that it is usually unnecessarily, but this logical approach doesn't always seem to work on my more illogical, emotional side.

So coming across this quote today - "Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is." - just reminds me to work through the fear because chances are good there's better stuff at the end of the limb.