VER-XV-0065
“I faced the conversation I'd been dodging and it was smaller than the fear of it.”
The avoidance had built the thing into a monster, weeks of dread feeding it in the dark. You finally looked, said the words, and the actual conversation was a fraction of the fear. That's the lesson under almost every dread: the fog is heavier than the truth. You walked into it eyes open and walked out lighter.
Your Practice
- Note the gap between the dread and the reality. That gap is the lesson, bank it.
- Name the next conversation you're avoiding and the story your fear is telling about it.
- Have it sooner rather than later. Avoidance is the only thing feeding the monster.
- Make 'face it early' a rule. The fog grows in exact proportion to how long you wait.
The Architects
“Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.”
Nikola Tesla, 'A Machine to End War,' Liberty magazine, 9 February 1935 (as told to George Sylvester Viereck)