A couple of years ago I was concerned about becoming an “empty nester”. Well, here I am three years later, and over all of that time, I only had an empty nest for three months. You may remember that Eric started college only to come home a semester later and get a job. He was home for a year-and-a-half. He went back to school last September. Josh spent two years at college and this past September decided to take some time off, regroup, find a job, and figure out his next steps before continuing. Sammi’s been gone for five years now. She never came home, even over summer break. Instead of an empty nest I have a revolving door. Three children, three unique experiences.
Everything here is about to change again. As I write this there are three of us living in our home. By the end of this week there will be six of us and a dog. Eric will be home in a day or two. He’ll spend the summer back at his deli job. Josh is already home. Sammi is graduating with her Master’s in Management in a couple of weeks. She’s moving back home along with her boyfriend and dog. Their goal is to save enough money to be able to afford a down payment on a house. My food bill is about to skyrocket. Hopefully the vegetables I planted over the weekend will help to offset some of the bills. Here’s a picture of the eight heads of lettuce that we’ll be eating shortly.
Worrying is Counterproductive
My worrying about an empty nest was a little premature, completely unwarranted and now I’m worrying about an overly full house. Have you ever worried before you needed to? Maybe even when you finally did experience whatever you were worried about realized that the worrying was unfounded? I think that’s what I’m doing now.
I was watching a video by Will Smith about his experience skydiving. Since I jumped out of a plane in October 2015 I was curious about what he had to say. During the video, he talked about how the fear you experience is in anticipation of the event when, you’re perfectly safe and sound, not when you’re supposed to be scared. When you’re falling you’re not scared at all, in fact it’s bliss.
There are a lot of things you do in your business that the anticipation is scarier than the reality. I have three suggestions for you. First, watch the video (there are lots of versions online, here’s one of them). Second, remember what Will Smith said, when you’re worrying over something that is coming up, remember that in that moment you are perfectly safe. There is no reason to ruin your day (or night’s sleep). Know that the point of maximum danger is the point of minimum fear. Stop worrying. Do what you need to do and you’ll find out that the best things in life are on the other side of your fear.
Third, take a look at what I learned skydiving. Use this link if you want to see a video of me jumping out of a plane and this link to read about the 10 lessons I learned from skydiving.
Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments section below.
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