31 Days of Fear{less}: Living in Spite of

Okay, so today is a big day.

Are you ready for this?

We're headed back to Taylor Swift, yall. :)

To me, Fearless is not the absence of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. To me, Fearless is having fears. Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, Fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. -Taylor Swift

For the next bit, we're going to talk about how living fear{less} means living in spite of things that are scary. Something that I've realized is that there is never going to be a shortage of scary things in the world. Some scary things are "legit" fears, but most of them really just stand in the way of us living our lives to the absolute fullest. I mean, is my fear of flying on an airplane because it might fall out of the sky justified? How many planes really just "fall out of the sky" on a daily basis? Please. This is a totally irrational fear. I mean, the total odds of dying in a plane crash (considering every single crash...not just ones that just "fall out of the sky") is 1 in 5,862. According to this site, you're more likely to die falling out of bed. Silly right? I think I'm not going to be able to sleep in a bed again. :)

I mean, think about it. We live in a broken, fallen world. We live in a world where bad things happen to good people. But, are we supposed to just stop living? Are we supposed to just lock ourselves in our homes and sleep on air mattresses? I don't think so. If we choose to live fear{less}, we make the choice to live in spite of these things. We make the choice to not let our fears hold us back. I mean, I think of all of the things that I've avoided over the years because of fear. There have been several things that looking back, weren't as bad as I thought they were. They weren't as scary as I thought. I'm not sure why I was so freaked out about them. Then, there's other instances. The times when I chose to live fear{less}. When I didn't let my fear of "what may" hold me back. Take New York City for instance. I was terrified to go there. I mean- think of all that could go wrong.

• Plane flight. 
• Tsunami destroying the city. 
• Giant meteor falling and hitting the Earth. 
• Lots and lots of people mean more crime. 
• Getting stuck up there and not being able to come home. 

But, I went anyways (and yes, those were really the fears that I had going into this trip). And you know what? None of that stuff happened. I survived. Mom survived. No natural disasters occurred. The world didn't come to an end, even though it's 2012. Scared to death of these kinds of things. But, I did it. Living Fear{less}, guys. :)

It's time to buckle up and enjoy the ride. Time to live fear{less} in spite of the things that scare you the most.