On faith and fear

"Faith is the substance of things unseen…and so is fear."

I had never thought of it that way, my grandfather has a special way of saying things that always come back to be so much more relevant than I ever realize and after a lovely morning conversation, those words (among many others) are still reverberating within my skull.

I've recently been in a fierce standoff with fear - and not just fear, but confidence in my abilities. I call it a standoff because it hasn't really been a fight, I've kinda let things happen and react to them rather than making things happen.

There's something about the uncertainty of the future that makes fears seem less like an unseen thing, but a definite. I know that fear has kept me from pursuing opportunities - I can recognize moments in time where I can't say a door was slammed in my face, I had simply looked at the door and walked by, too scared to knock because I was sure that the door would never open, that what was on the other side would be too much for me to handle, that I wouldn't be good enough, smart enough, that I wouldn't measure up to what the unknown people on the other side desired out of me.

It's a terrible way to go through life if I have to be completely honest, haha. Living at the mercy of unseen specters, sucking the joy out of your daily existence because you're so sure of something that you haven't even attempted. 

How many things have you not accomplished simply because you didn't try?

As I continued this conversation with my grandfather, that question began to bounce around my head. How many times had I killed a chance by simply not taking a risk?  It's crazy the logical reasons we can come up with to not pursue our purpose. It's not the right time… It's a bad economy, I have to take what I can get… I need more experience… when the truth of the matter is that we shut ourselves out for no reason. 

What's the worst that could happen? They say no. 

We seem to forget that life doesn't end there. If there's one thing this job I have now taught me, it's that no doesn't have to mean never. It just means not now. It doesn't mean to stop trying to reach that goal.

If every actor I knew stopped what they did because they heard a no, I wouldn't know many actors, lol. There's a beauty in rejection, there's beauty in continuing to fight for your life, your livelihood, your purpose, whatever it is that you love, you have to have some fight in you.

It all comes down to one thing: if I take a chance, believe in myself, I can't get discouraged by a no, but I can get discouraged if I allow my fear to stop me from asking a question, because nothing is more discouraging than letting fear - something that's all in your head - win.