Fence Posts and Dreams

One of the scariest things in the world for me is to have a wide open schedule, whether it be for two hours, two months or the rest of my life. On the surface it sounds nice. Inside though, I have nagging questions like What do I do next?,  If I choose this opportunity, what else am I missing? and Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?  I’ve gotten accustomed to having my days planned out so I don’t have to deal with such questions. But I limit myself by doing so.

This morning I read Mary DeMuth’s post where she asked my friend Justin Lukasavige an awesome question. She simply asked What would it look like for you to live uncaged in 2012?  As I read his answers and turned the question on myself I realized I don’t know what that that would look like in my life. Justin uses the term wide open spaces, something I don’t operate well in.

If life were an open field, I’ve been putting up fenceposts as I’ve gone along, slowing building a boundary between those things I’m scared of and the comfortable life I often choose by default. Each decision is another fencepost protecting me from having to choose a direction to go. Over time, I’ve separated myself, often unconsciously, from painful choices by creating a space I can comfortably operate in. It’s anything but wide open, though.

When I think about jumping to the other side of the fence to pursue something new my brain freezes up. I don’t even know what possibilities are on this side. For someone who wants to see the end result, the destination, before starting the journey, it scares the hell out of me.

As a free agent, the problem isn’t being able to do what I want. It’s knowing what I want to do because I have many options to choose from. I’m afraid of choosing the wrong one. Unfortunate for detailed oriented people like me, but that’s the way life usually works.

So what do I do about this? For starters I’m going to keep taking daily actions towards the goals I established in my current Pick Four workbook. I  also need to take steps to overcome small things that scare me, like Michael and Claudia Good’s “I Don’t Care Project” over at Rise365.com. Because I put the fence posts in place, I can take them down, hopefully more than one at a time.

The good thing for me is I like demolishing and tearing things down as much as I like creating and building them.

Are you operating in wide open spaces or are you fencing yourself in?