Fear is a choice.

Andy Sparks
Jul 10, 2017 · 2 min read
Photo Credit: Carlos Alberto Gomez

We all know that feeling when we’re driving up on a green light from a distance and we just know the light has been green for too long. Instinctively, our gut tells us it’s going to turn yellow right as we come up on the intersection. It’s called a stale green light. Sometimes, I think life feels like that. Everything is going swimmingly, it has been for a long while, and I can’t shake the fear that some shoe somewhere is going to drop.

I told a friend a few months back that my life feels like its light has been green for too long. He then shared that his light has been green for almost two decades — ever since he met his wife. His point was not that his wife is some mythical cure to life’s malaise, but rather about how the two of them see the world optimistically.

Going through life each day in fear of what’s around each corner to kick sand in your face is a pretty terrifying way to live, and it’s a choice. It hasn’t been one sat down and made purposefully, but by sitting with that story in my head it had definitely been a choice. After hearing about my friend and his nearly two decades of a green light, it sounds pretty silly to choose to continue on with the fear, so I’m going to stop.

🎉 🍻 ❤️ — Andy

Andy Sparks

Written by

Co-founder & CEO at Holloway. Past: Co-founder & COO at Mattermark.

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