This issue I would like to talk about something that effects all of us, even if we don’t quite want to admit it: Fear.
We all fear something, be it paying our bills on time, starting a new project or job, being a good parent or something as simple as correctly programming our DVR so we do not miss our favorite show.

Fear can become dangerous when it holds us back from doing what we want.

In my early life, there was no stability, no one to pass on the proper lessons to battle fear and accomplish my goals. However, it is never to late to move forward, no matter your age or station in life.

Last week I attended a local Open Mic night, something my own inner fears had steered me away from time after time over the last year.

The idea of public speaking has always been a minor issue and although I have done it before, such as reading a Bible passage at my friend’s wedding, there was still a charge there to be nullified. However, after a year which has been ripe with positive yet difficult change, I was determined that this time would be different.

When we step outside our comfort zones, we enable ourselves to alter our entire reality. It may seem like New Age mumbo jumbo, but positive attracts positive.

Entering the conference room where the Open Mic would take place, I was a bundle of nerves. I was a bit relived to see that with twenty minutes to go till the official start of the event, only three people had signed in to read. Soon the place would be a bit more busy, leaving me the third person to read to the assembled crowd of about thirty people.

Stepping outside your comfort zone and facing your fears can, as said, be difficult. To be able to do it with efficiency, you must find the positive and an inner calm somewhere either within yourself or the situation, no matter how maddening the circumstance.

In this case, it was the eight year old girl who read immediately before me who gave me the fuel for my fire. They had set up a separate microphone for her to the left of the podium, as she was reading a chapter of an ongoing book. She ran through the chapter of her imaginative tale with the speed and excitement only a small child can manage. Besides being technically brilliant for a writer so young, her energy was so infectious that no one in the room could help but smile.

When she finished, the applause were palpable, the entire group seemed to be inspired by the young lady who showed such poise and presence.

This made the reading of my poem a million times easier. After I was finished and got a slightly less boisterous but none the less enthusiastic response, the deed was done and I had made another small step forward.

The poem I read is below but I wanted to share a real life anecdote that inspired me and hope that it inspires you to conquer your fears, whatever they may be.

If I can do it…you can do it as well.

Ghosts of duality…do they haunt me or is this the exoticism for the ages?

I have regretfully resigned myself to the task that all is not sustenance…some things are poison, but to watch the dual moons rise out of the dusk of rebirth still causes the waters of the body to mingle and mystify, yet old looks only cause one to look old.

Adrift on uncharted seas I sail into the storms constantly, the one thing that has not changed. The strength to do what others dare not because I feel they are the right stars to follow till a new dawn arises from the East.

Sirens call from the shores where I know there are only jagged stones determined to wreck my ship, but yet they are so inviting in the comfort of familiarity, calling out, laughing at the voices of the dead men whose ships broke up and sank to depths uncharted by the living…only the dead live in the black waters.

And what of the contents of the hold? Are there treasures unpolished and dull, only waiting for the righteous cloth torn from the skin of the father, a child free to search for his own new land, or a fool riding momentum into places unknown?
The skeletons in the locker must walk, they must speak, they must point the way because only by studying the bones of the past can we hope to reach the time of new flesh, born not of fear but of determination driven by an intelligence and soul far beyond many.

In secret, far from the ears of the static of this intertwined reality I hunt myself true. I say nothing of my pair of books, growing dusty and older each passing second, yet somehow as alive as my life creator and her docking, no need to see words when it seems to be embedded in the stone of your heart.

Yet each rotation I steer into the storms over and over again, for the only way to get out of the rain is to walk straight through.

Yet I am still only man…with a man’s soul…pity not
the weary adventurer for only through exploration do we find the way to dismiss need and find the true path to the now.