Two Things on a Satwosday

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First, via Emma Bull:

Oktapodi from Asım Varol on Vimeo.

I can’t wait to show that to my family when I get home.

Second, I just finished The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. If you know the book already, you know why it’s great. If you don’t, you should definitely read it. Let me talk about something briefly, though.

Three days a week, I ride the bus to downtown for my day job. Part of the trip involves a fairly high bridge. Now, I have a thing about heights, so I sometimes sit on the right side of the bus so I will be right at the edge of the bridge (no sidewalk) looking down, hoping that I will get used to it and get over it. (There’s a name for that sort of therapy, but it escapes me for the moment and my google fu is weak today.)

Most days, though… no. I’m too tired, too stressed, too whatever. I tell myself I don’t have enough resources for that, so I ride on the left side, I close my eyes, I look up. Anything but look down while thinking of this picture.

But yesterday, I took the window seat. And by chance, I happened to read one of the final chapters in the book, about the difference between real fear and worry (a minor part of the book, really). And what Mr. de Becker said made so much sense to me that I closed the book in my lap and sat looking out the window during the bridge part of the trip.

Yeah, there was a little tingle of worry, but I have never felt such calm at the edge of a high place in my whole life.

I’ve been talking a bit here and there around the web about self-imposed limits, but this is a biggie. I’ve always been a worrier, but now I’m wondering if I’ve let my stress levels push me into self-indulgence. Fears are there to be conquered, right?