Dear Daughter, Don’t Fear Change — Learn to Love It
Change is scary, but it’s the essence of life. It’s venturing into the unknown. But change can also be good. It usually is. Take calculated risks often and keep growing.
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Dear daughter,
We all fear and resist change. It’s not just you. Young and old alike.
The scary unknown.
People often fear change for the sake of change itself, not the consequences. Change means entering unknown waters, and we tend to resist the unknown. What we don’t understand frightens us.
For example, your grandma is afraid of traveling. She has very little experience venturing into the unknown and loves to hate her little routine. The idea of doing something she hasn’t done before, meeting new people, and entering new cultures frightens her to the core. Her beliefs regarding people from different countries are colored by what she sees on TV, and that’s seldom focused on the good. She even fears computers and smartphones because she doesn’t understand them.
Your parents, on the other hand, love nothing more than to embark on an adventure into the unknown. Or maybe it’s just me? Your mother wasn’t always like this, you know. She, too, had lived within her little world, gated by the limits of her comfort zone. Then she met yours truly.
I challenged her to try new things all the time. For example, she had never ridden a motorcycle in her life and had limited experience traveling. The third time she was on the back of mine, we were already on a trip that would take us across multiple countries and last for over ten days. I kept throwing her out of her comfort zone by adding challenges to our trip, such as camping and a few days of vagabonding on the deck of a ferry. It was an adventure, after all.
She found her courage and broke the confinement of her comfort zone. It was scary, but she was willing to give it a try. At least once.
It turns out she loved it despite being thrown into the jaws of the unknown with a man she had barely met. She trusted me and herself to be okay, no matter what, and made the leap of faith. For the last couple of years, we have had a lot of fun adventuring together, and none of that would have been possible had she not found the courage to try something new and scary.
With change, you often don’t know where life will take you.
Sometimes, the changes are small. Other times, they will completely turn your life on its head. You fear change because you don’t know:
- How the future will look and feel. — Fear of the unknown.
- If you’ll like this change, and will it be for the better? — Fear of making a mistake.
- If you’ll make it in this new world of challenges. — Fear of failing.
No one knows these things upfront, my darling girl. Some of us have just learned to accept that fact and force ourselves to try new things despite our fears and reservations.
The biggest risk is never taking any risk at all.
Change is always scary, but you would be frozen in time if you never changed.
You would still be a little toddler, holding on to your little pacifier to manage your emotions. You would never meet your friends, go to school, get a job, or meet your lovers. Who you are is the culmination of all the changes and challenges in your life.
Go with the flow of life; don’t resist it.
Change is the essence of life. Nature loves nothing more than to change things. It is the most natural thing in the universe.
Any change will seem scary. Embrace this fear of the unknown and throw yourself out of your comfort zone as often as possible, especially when you’re young.
Your world is still small and limited. The only way to expand and fill it with experiences, love, and wisdom is to seek new things, perspectives, people, and adventures.
Challenge yourself.
Deliberately exit your comfort zone as often as you can. That is how you grow. That is how you get better. Life is a series of changes we mark with memories. Nothing in this world stays the same forever, and if you fail to embrace change and flow with the times, you will get left behind.
I know you’re afraid of change and venturing out of your comfort zone. We all are. Face that fear of yours and face it often.
Everything you desire is on the other side of fear.
The more you are afraid of something, the more freeing and empowering facing that fear will be for you. Usually, the things we fear the most are the things that will make us the happiest.
Generally, the life you so desperately seek is hiding on the other side of fear. Fear of change is often a fear of failure in disguise, and fear of failure is the killer of dreams.
Never fear to fail, my darling!
We all fail, and the most successful members of humanity fail often, fail fast, and get back on the horse even quicker. It’s a skill you must master. The quickest way to succeed in life is to learn to fail better and faster. Ironic, I know.
The only actual failure is never having tried in the first place. The biggest risk is never taking any risk at all.
It’s a guarantee for misery, stagnation, and sorrow. Like most people, I never regretted trying something and failing at it, and I’ve failed a lot. At least I gave it a shot, even if the result was negative.
I only regret things I didn’t even try because I was afraid.
The people I didn’t give a chance to, relationships that could have been joyful but were never allowed. Experiments I never conducted because I was afraid of the “what ifs.” Challenges I never attempted because they seemed impossible.
I only regret the risks I didn’t take, never the ones I took and didn’t work out.
Take calculated risks.
Initiate change and throw yourself out of your comfort zone as often as possible, my darling. You’ve drawn a circle limiting your life experience all around you. We all do. That is who we think we are and what we believe our life to be, but who you can become lies beyond.
But these limits are of our own making. I don’t know what lies on the other side of that line in your life, but I strongly suggest you go and find out. Chances are good that what you seek lies just beyond the limit of your comfort zone.
Unless you embrace the unknown, the uncertainty of life and learn to challenge yourself by taking risks, venturing out of your comfort zone, and yes, sometimes flailing miserably, you’ll never know what all you could have achieved, who you could have become, and what magic life could have in store for you.
Change is the door to something new, often better, and your courage to venture into the unknown is the key to a fulfilling life.
Everything that will make you happy will be on the other side of fear and come through change. The best things in life are often entirely unexpected. Be bold and live with courage, not cowardice, my darling. Don’t be afraid to live your best life. Fortune favors the brave, don’t you know?
One person’s comfort zone may be another’s nightmare.
We are all unique, and we all fight our own battles. Everyone around you does. You just don’t know it. So, cut people some slack. They may be fighting battles you don’t know anything about.
Now, If you’ll excuse me, I have to take my own advice and make some changes myself. I’ve also been afraid of allowing for certain changes in our lives. I may seem to live outside my comfort zone to some, but I struggle with the simple things that come naturally to most. I take certain risks, unimaginable to most, with ease and bravado, but cower at the most mundane tasks and challenges.
When you see someone who seems to have it all figured out, realize that they, too, have had to venture out of their comfort zone and take risks. Most may have turned out to be failures, but some were resounding successes. Those are the ones we see in the end.
Re-frame failure from bad to good.
The trick is never to see failure as the end of the game but as a learning block on the path to success. You have learned something new, which makes you wiser and better. What you could mistakenly call a failure should instead be called progress.
Every failed relationship, job, or challenge in life will lead you to the right one, and you’ll learn something invaluable along the way. Without that experience and pain, the doors to your dreams will remain closed forever.
You cannot become the strongest person in the world without some wounds. You cannot become the best fighter without taking a few punches, and you can’t become a good partner to someone you love without first going through a few bad relationships.
Where else will you learn other than by trying new things, venturing into the unknown, and embracing change and the failures that sometimes accompany it?
Whenever you fear some change because it can end badly, remind yourself that it’s equally possible it might turn out great. While the odds of success are almost always unknown, one thing is certain. You will be wiser, more experienced, and better as a result of this change.
In truth, you always win when you get over your fear, regardless of the results of that particular situation. Never judge them upfront because you can never know why some things happened the way they happened and if they were ultimately good or bad. Only time will tell.
Remember all the challenges you overcame to be where you are today. Think of all the changes that seemed so frightening initially but now seem so natural when you look back. Everything in life is composed of changes, big and small. So, by the very definition, change is at least as much a good thing as a bad thing.
Your relationship with changes and an unknown future will depend primarily on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist.
Choose optimism, as being a pessimist or a cynic guarantees a miserable existence. Train yourself to focus on the good side of things and expect good things to come. What you focus on increases in your life, so focus on the good, the beauty, and the love.
Your work is not to guess and know but to be brave and try.
Life is a series of changes. Don’t resist them. Flow with life and learn to embrace the changes along the way. They aren’t good or bad. They are life, and life is to be lived.
Here’s a little secret: The more you challenge yourself, face your fears, welcome change, and embrace the unknown, the more you begin to enjoy it. What frightens most people around you will become effortless for you, perhaps even fun and exhilarating. You might even end up loving this new and open side of yourself, welcoming new adventures, people, and opportunities. That will open unimaginable new doors for you that would otherwise stay shut.
What’s behind those doors? Only one way to find out. Jump. Live boldly, my darling.
Life is either an adventure or nothing at all!
Love, Dad.
