Fear and discouragement!

Today and most of this week I have been trying to take advantage of the time I have off to get a head-start on my near-future plans. Since lately I have been kind of living life about a month in advance, this process of "future planning" has been very slow, lacking in motivation, but most of all almost staggeringly horrifying. What?! HORRIFYING?! This is coming from the guy who signed up to teach EFY on a whim 3 months before it started and left to work the whole summer without a car and not-knowing how he was going to get to all 9 sessions that he was assigned. This is coming from the missionary who had no previous relatives to lean on for experience, who had to pioneer the whole "preparing for a mission" period without empathetic family members and then after was called to a small island half-way around the world and had to leave for said mission the day after the 9/11 terrorist attack. This is coming from a performer who relishes in the thrill of solo A Cappella performance opportunities and aspires to be a Choral teacher where he will need to do weird and very emasculating things in front of teenagers daily. I seem to have no problem putting myself into any of these risky and what other people might see as "horrifying" situations. In fact, I live for situations like these! But apparently ask me to sit down and make an accounting of what experiences that I have had, put these experiences in words and plan my life out for more than a month in advance and all of a sudden I start sweating bullets and practicing avoidance behaviors like mad. When did I start being such a wussy pants? I guess I have always known that I detest making plans for a future that I cannot see any clearly than a Kaleidoscope of possibilities. There's just too many opportunities for me to choose the wrong thing so why not just continue to choose the right things that I am choosing now and not worry about anything else? Then comes the knowledge that after awhile continuing to drive yourself into a rut and not progressing is another wrong choice. So now we come to where I'm at right now, a wrong choice at my back and millions of other choices in front of me. I know probably, like you, a lot of scripture references now come to mind like Paul stating "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." or "Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things." but these scriptures don't really give much comfort besides the fact to tell me that these feelings are natural. I just kind of wish I had someone here to tell me that who had arms to hold me instead of pages to inspire me. Sometimes inspiration doesn't have the benefit of a tactile experience.

Tactile experiences are very important to me. This is why I love dance and hiking and being outside so much is because you get to touch stuff. Anyways, to avoid getting too mushy I guess this time of reflection and planning has reminded me of things that I need in my life. This can get discouraging but if I have learned anything over the years is that discouragement only stays as long as it is welcome. It is a very polite guest and knows when it has overstayed it's welcome. Even though I may fear planning for my future, I also anticipate what the future holds and am excited for the learning and growth that it will bring. So for now my mantra is "Carpe Propositum!"