I was going through a few old journals and found some notes I wrote several years ago that seem just as relevant to so many of us today. What follows is not exhaustive nor necessarily applicable to you in all its points. But as we enter a new year, I invite you to read through the list and even add your own items. Most of all, I entreat you to take this seriously and ask yourself each day of this new year how might you live differently, in your travels and your daily routine, if you removed fear from the equation.
If I didn’t live by fear, I would:
- Worry less
- Tell those I care for how much they mean to me
- Serve without expecting acknowledgement or gratitude
- Journey by being prepared for but not always ruminating on the worst case scenario
- Say “I love you” to those who expect such words from me and those who don’t
- Live more in the present
- Focus on what matters most in life and share that with far more people
- Stand up for and with others
- Live in the freedom of not caring what people think but be sensitive not to abuse that freedom
- Pray with and for everyone whom I sense needs it
- Respect and be more concerned about the feelings of others
- Speak the truth in love (and do so out of genuine concern for others and not as an excuse to gossip or vent)
- Raise my hands in churches where no one else does and sit quietly in ones where everyone else is shouting on their feet
- Travel to more places that make me nervous
- Sleep better
- Pay attention and listen more
- Cry at sad movies and laugh in others even when no one else finds something funny
- Let fewer trivial things upset me and be more outraged by real injustice
- Give more hugs
- Take more risks
- Push my limits
- Have much larger comfort zones and routinely step outside of them
- Celebrate the success of others and be less concerned about my own
- Fear only God and trust him to complete what I cannot
- Trust God. Period.
If I could nail that last one, I think all the others would take care of themselves. But how about you? What would you add or change on this list?