Do Something Challenging Every Week (3A/25). Part A.

Introduction: 

Marcus Garvey says, "with confidence, you have won before you have started." Isn't that neat? We win ever before we start when we have confidence. That sounds like a quiet thing. We here continue with the third of the “25 Ways To Improve Your Self Confidence (Drastically!).” The first thing that hits me as I read the title is Eleanor Roosevelt's words, “Do one thing that scares you every day.” Eleanor should know that. She was a quiet leader. Eleanor and her husband, Franklin, are included in my "Hall of fame." 

Idleness is Generator of Fear:

What are the risks we are exposed to if we fail to heed Eleanor's counsel? One sure one is we remain in our comfort zone and get in a rut. And, you know the definition of a rut? A grave with two ends open. Who wants to get buried before they die? Sure not me, and I doubt you either. Mark Victor Hansen puts it this way, "action eradicates fear. No matter what you fear, positive, self-affirming action can diminish or completely cancel that which you are fearful of."

Idleness is the generator of fear. The Turks put it this way, "the devil tempts all other men, but idle men tempt the devil. Idleness is the root of all evil." Last year I commenced a study on Anxiety, Depression, and their associates. What quickly jumped at me was the association between mental illness and lack of activity, idleness. That probably says a lot about the explosion of mental illness in our generation. Sören Kierkegaard tells us “Anxiety is the price of freedom.” 

Kierkegaard might just have said “Anxiety is the price of idleness,” for freedom to do all things could as well be freedom to do nothing. We need to be constrained by a goal, a target, a focus, a purpose, a vision. As the holy book puts it, “where there is no vision the people perish for they lack restrain (boundaries).” When you lack a purpose for your life, all roads lead there. “Without discipline, there's no life at all.” (Katherine Hepburn) 

For there to be living in our life, we need to have a purpose, a vision our life is focused towards. We need to have definite boundaries defined by who we are, choose to be, and are becoming. This then calls for specific actions and ways of doing things, we need to inculcate to arrive home. 

St. Akin de Great.

Link to Series:

Talk Back To Your Inner Critic (2/25).

Do Something Challenging Every Week (3B/25). Part B.