“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”

― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

I have never done well with the unknown. 

Never.

And right now there is just so much unknown and uncertainty. It has been nerve wracking and anxiety inducing to say the absolute least on the subject. There is just so much that I don’t know and so much that I cannot predict. 

In Navigating Grief: Lessons from the Tao Te Ching I talked a bit about getting out of my own way and letting myself find a new path forward. That is easy to say, but not as easy to do. There are so many possibilities, not all of them good or feasible, and many of which take some real effort on my part. Effort that I have a finite amount of energy for. I only have so many spoons in a day to spend and I never fully know how many that is going to be until I get out of bed each morning, if I manage to make it out of bed. 

At the moment I am attempting to get government assistance in the form of disability. If that goes through many of the options I have now become unavailable. If it doesn’t go through, what are my next steps? Do I try once more to get another job knowing what happened the last time I tried? Knowing how quickly after trying my health deteriorated and all the progress I’d made got lost? Do I try to pursue another avenue of financial aid? What other avenues of financial aide are there (and why is it so hard to find that information)? Money is needed to survive in this world. How am I going to make enough money to do that? Even better, can I make enough money to survive on my own without having to continue to rely on others?  

More immediately, how am I going to eat next week? Where am I going to be sleeping? I know that my loved ones won’t let me starve or be homeless but how long can I continue to rely on others’ generosity before they get tired of me or before the guilt of having to do so becomes too much? How long can I continue to fight with the guilt of not being able to bring in my own money and support myself before I lose my everloving mind? 

If disability and other financial aid options fall through, how do I know which paths are worth pursuing and which ones are better left untouched? Is it worth it to keep writing this blog and trying to make it more consistent? Is it worth it to try to write more, stream more, or to create more of a social media presence in an attempt to gain a following and make money that way? Is it worth it to use the limited mental energy I have to keep trying to finish my book? Should I make a podcast since typing is hard some days and a podcast would let me talk? Should I make a tiktok account and try to get a following there? Do I even have the energy and skills needed to make any of those ideas work for me? At what point do I give up on that pursuit and find another route to take? 

I have a degree in writing, psychology, and early childhood education and special education. Are those degrees going to go to waste? How can I tie those into any future pursuits so that the near hundred thousand dollars of student loan debts I have don’t go to waste?  Is it worth it to tie those degrees into future endeavors? Will they help me or hinder me? 

There are so many unknowns. So many fears and anxieties and big questions. And right now, as in most of this year, there have been no good answers. No great choices jumping out at me. No great options that seem to make sense or feel right.

If anything more questions appear every day, with every new obstacle, every new doctor’s appointment, MRI referral, trip to the Emergency Room, and blood draw of which there have been many. 

And yet, despite the fears, anxieties, and questions, I can’t help but feel just a little excited and hopeful. 

As much as I hate it and as much as it gives me anxiety, there is always an element of unknown in anything you do. Any big change brings uncertainty and fear. 

I have a lot of things I can thank my parents for and one of them is this lesson that has been hard won: Don’t let fear keep you from living. 

These last several months- this whole year really- it has been moving from unknown to unknown with more questions, more uncertainty, and more fear. Yet things have continued to work out, sometimes in ways I never would have believed they could.

Fear exists in our lives for a reason. It serves a purpose in our lives, but often can get in the way of making changes or taking steps to pursue our biggest hopes and dreams. People learn to be cautious, conservative with their desires, and to play their lives safely. We go for the guaranteed safe choices looking for security. There is nothing wrong with that, really, except when it prevents you from taking reasonable risks to pursue things that are going to fulfill you.

At this moment, I don’t have much to lose. Why not try to do something then that I never thought I’d do or that I am uncertain of? Why not take the leap, start the podcast, open the tiktok account, make more of a consistent blogging schedule, and do the stream more reliably? Why not do the things I am afraid to do? Fear of failure? That’s not a good enough reason not to try. 

So, I’ll try. 

Who knows, maybe I’ll succeed and it’ll open up to things I never thought would come.