Going back, going forward

#Trust30 blogging challenge

Prompt 9: Afraid to Do
The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” What is ‘too scary’ to write about? Try doing it now. (Author: Mary Jaksch)

Going back, going forward
Carrying the past with us too much stops us from being able to grow and reinvent ourselves. Attachment to ego too often stops us from being able to say ‘look I was wrong, I feel differently now.” Once we state and opinion our ego catches hold of it and is loathe to back down or change its mind, lest we should have to explain our ‘inconstancy’ to others. The paradox is that all of life is an inconstancy. Everything changes, nothing is permanent. Why then should our minds, our ideas, our values be permanent in the sense that they are fixed, unable to change or develop? We often value what other people will think about us and our opinions more than we value what we think about our opinions, and lot of second-guessing ensues!

My scary thing to write about is that I’m afraid to go back into the dating scene, after six years out. I’m afraid I’m looking for something that doesn’t exist. I’m afraid I don’t know the places to look. I’m afraid to trust that people are basically good again. I’m afraid that people are not capable of returning the love I have to give. I’m afraid of my heart getting battered again. Eeeep!

I guess all of this would be irrelevant if I trusted myself.