TOW: The worst thing that can happen?

The point of this blog post is something that I said to my dad while we discussed travel.  My dad was making a not-so-surprising comment about my inability to have social limits, and I was commenting how some of the best experiences I've had were meeting strangers in odd places, and striking up a conversation with them.  Travel is exciting when we put aside our worries, and go up to strangers and engage them, see what it's like to talk to someone, in a different land, maybe in a different language.  For me, traveling is about ideas, and finding connections between your world and other places.  The world is just so exciting when you think of it as a world of hidden friendship.  Some of the most memorable moments are small conversations with strangers.


Because you aren't worried about your future with that person, the future that could be if you say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, act the wrong way.  You feel worried sometimes in your regular life.

And, who doesn't know how much I love to worry about things?  I worry about things that might happen, about things that haven't happened, about things that will happen, about things that will never happen.  Sometimes I'm serious in my worrying.  Sometimes it's an exercise in trying my friend's and family's patience.

But sometimes, it's something I have to work to get past.  Because it stops me from living well. Because fear is not the way to finding happiness in my life.  It's the road block on the way to things I want and need and cherish.



But fear is a strange thing.  Too much or too little can harm us.  Fear is meant to keep us safe from things that we don't yet understand that could be dangerous.  But fear is also something to be overcome, so that we can showcase the power and strength of the human spirit.

Most people let fear dictate the limits of their happiness.  Because to them, fear of the unknown, of whatever that thing they think is the worst....that scares them more than anything.  And they let that fear rule their hearts.  And their happiness.

And herein lies the point of this blog post, something that is supposed to be on a t-shirt, according to my dad: the worst thing that could happen is probably something good.  When we travel, we we try new things, when we meet new people, it's nothing something bad.  Most of the time, the worst thing that could happen is we could be surprised by our own happiness.

We always expect bad things to happen...but the best things happen when we don't expect anything at all, and let new experiences become something amazing.