A friend suggested that I jump off a platform into a lake this summer. Logically speaking it seemed like a fine thing to do — the platform was higher than 10 feet but lower than 20 feet, the lake was deep, my friend has done it many times and I’ve jumped off higher things although not for a long time. It wasn’t until I stood at the edge of it and felt my gorge rise and my pulse race that I realized I very rarely feel visceral fear these days.

The times I feel something in the fear spectrum, when I’m tired and hungry or in the middle of the night when I can’t go back to sleep, it often is disguised as fear’s gentler cousins – dread, disappointment, doubt or disillusionment. It wasn’t until I tasted that full-on experience again that I realized how closely related they are and how they must be guarded against just as carefully.
I stood on that platform for a long time, unable to jump or back down. Then a nice young man volunteered to do it first and that broke fear’s hold so that I could as well. Sometimes I just need someone to show me that there is nothing other than my own reluctance holding me in that cheapest room of the house.