…that way lies our hope, where sits our greatest fear. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Regular readers of this crap know The Lord of the Rings is a frequent contributor to this feature. For our money it is as splendidly written a book as our language has produced – unsurpassed, really, and matched only by Gore Vidal’s Creation – and Tolkien does a brilliant job of doing what you pay us writers to do, provide insights into our Human Experience.
Life is both easy and difficult.
On the one hand, all we have to do is live and die. That’s not particularly difficult. We don’t really have to do anything except provide for ourselves and bow to Mother Nature’s command to reproduce. On the other hand, it is human nature to want to do things, to want to advance, to want to be something we haven’t been before. This is sometimes difficult because it is involves following a path no one else taking.
It has to be that way, however, because no one else has our combination of talents, ambition and interests. No one else is us, therefore while we might walk close to someone else’s path, our path must be separate. If we’re taking someone else’s route, we are not living the life we were meant to live.
where sits our greatest fear…
Fear is an impostor, standing between us and where we want to go merely because we let it. Fear is there to make it difficult for us to get started because it takes courage to push ourselves away from the pier, to follow a path no one else is on, to make a trail instead of following one. But once we muster the courage to dismiss fear we will find things will start falling into place.
Anyone can say they will start doing this or that tomorrow. Not everyone gets started though, which is too bad because starting in on the life you were meant to live is one of life’s great prizes. Every step forward to your ultimate goal will produce a wonderful dividend of confidence.
We can’t be afraid to blaze our own trail. And who knows? With a big enough blaze we might set the world on fire.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. All quotes are from Gaylon’s private stock.
