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I’ll sit-down with my acoustic guitar start and strumming the same three chords I’ve known since my uncle got tired of hearing me make noise. G, C, and D would allow me to play along with any country music song. I’ve been hooked on playing music for over 30 years because when I’m playing the world falls away.

I recently completed a Time Workbook in which I had to take account for the time I spend. How many hours in a given week I spend doing various activities. It troubles me that I can’t account for four hours in my week. I learned that I don’t actively and conscientiously assign and manage my time. It’s no wonder that with this level of mismanagement I lose sight of other meaningful things in my life.

Throughout the workbook, as I was thinking about dreams I want in life, I have to confront why I haven’t been working towards those dreams. Why haven’t I been pursuing my dreams? What has been stopping me?

It’s time for honest talk. The reason is simple. It’s fear. So many fears that hold me back, and that “play life safe” mentality ultimately costs the life I want.

How can I be fearless? I did some research.

Leo Babauta writes in his article The Path of Fearlessness published on zenhabits.net, “fears stop us from building healthy and productive habits. Fears cause us to procrastinate, keep us from finding work that is meaningful (or doing that work if we’ve found it). Fears keep us from finding friends or connecting with people on a deeper level. Fears keep us from being happy in each moment.”

Babauta writes there are three keys to developing Fearlessness.
– Facing the fear mindfully
– Seeing the underlying goodness
– Embracing the joy of groundlessness

The third key speaks to me. Embracing the joy of groundlessness when I’ve been seeking solid ground.

“Uncertainty is scary because we don’t like the feeling of not having stable ground under our feet. We want certainty, control, stability, permanence … but life is filled with uncertainty, impermanence, shakiness, chaos. This causes the fear. Instead, we can start to embrace this uncertainty, see the beauty in impermanence, see the positivity of groundlessness. This uncertainty means we don’t know what will happen, which means we can be surprised by every moment! We can be filled with curiosity about what will emerge. We can reinvent ourselves each moment, because nothing is set, nothing is determined. There is joy in this groundlessness, if we embrace it,” writes Babauta.

This is profound to me because I get so wrapped up in the stability of life that I lose the creative juices that flow through me.

Johann Hari writes in Stolen Focus Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again, “mind wondering allows ‘more extended trains of thought to unfold, which allows for more associations to be made.’”

As I navigate adulthood the disciplines I’ve enacted have caused the erosion of my creativity. I’ve told myself to stop day dreaming and focus. I’ve settled for what I think is safe and secure instead of what I’m passionate about.
I must confess, I don’t play the guitar as much as I used to. The playing I talked about earlier would lead me into a flow state, which Hari writes, “is when you areas absorbed in what you are doing that you lose all sense of yourself, and time seems to fall away, and you are flowing into the experience itself.”

My practices moving forward are be filtered by what my objective is. Are my actions being productive to what I want and where I want to go? If not, I need to reassess.