I’m having visions. Very interesting visions of how things can be done – what can be created – how things can be said – what is to come. Right now I’m painting. I’m painting this vision that I keep having stroke by stroke. As the days go by, I guess my mothers artist blood continues to prominently run through my veins. During these type of nights, where things are so clear and undisturbed in my head, I’m thankful for having that blood in me…it makes writing down these feelings a whole lot easier.

It’s amazing how something that seemed to be stirring inside of you for such a long period of time can disappear in what seems like moments. One little thing changes, one piece of information, one action…and a complete turning of gears happens in your mind and then you are gone. It baffles me when I go through things like that because sometimes I can be so stuck on something and then in an instant, bam, it vanishes from any of my thoughts. Is this my processing just coming into play or is it something else entirely? Maybe I will never know.

It’s always taken me a lot longer to process things than many other people. But this has actually turned into a gift of some sorts. When I go through situations in life, I really have to take the time to dig through all of it and understand what it means to me, what happened, and where I go from there. As time has gone on and I have spent more and more hours writing, I feel that the mixture of needing to take extra time to process and the ability to more accurately put words to my feelings and emotions has created a type of mixture that is oddly unique. While this deficiency didn’t exactly work well in testing situations in school, it has granted me a separate benefit altogether in writing my heart out. I have a feeling that will take me a whole lot farther than getting ruined in my Statistics classes ever will.

There are no superheroes. No flying figures in the night that watch over us. No superhuman feats of strength, speed, and agility. No, there’s only us. Only what we are. Only who we are. We may not be able to deflect a bullet or leap from building to building, but that does not mean we aren’t capable of great things. That we aren’t capable of moving mountains out of faith or even destroying them in hate. I sit here writing this out to you a deeply flawed man. I am no hero, but that doesn’t mean I’ll never be heroic. I have seen myself cower in the face of fear and that has opened my world up to having courage. I have spent years as a emotionally impoverished beggar in the dirt, and yet, does that mean I will not have my day where I defeat my demons and rise as a common champion for the people? No. And this is what I am getting at. If we can humbly accept the truth that we are who we are, to embrace the inevitable fact of our imperfections and put them on display them for the world to see…in an act of honesty and truth… and without fear create through love and for something far bigger than just ourselves…we may never be a superhero…but we can be something extraordinary.

One minute something is there and the next…it’s gone.

I don’t know what it is about this part of life but it continues to rock my socks, rip the rug out from underneath me, and fascinate me all at the same time. Things change instantly sometimes. In other cases, things change over time and no matter how much you’d like to deny their morphing…you know…you always know. For me, as silly as I can be sometimes, I’m no idiot. I’m very perceptive of the changes that are occurring or have occurred in the past and I’m aware of…usually…where things are going.

I lead with my heart but I never forget my head.

Tonight though, I want to end by talking about taking risks. That may be risks with your heart, with your career, with personal stories etc. Taking big risks is one of the scariest things you can possibly do. It challenges you beyond belief and demands everything from you at the same time. Yesterday, I took an incredible risk for a lack of better wording (which I will get to in a second) in sharing hands down the most personal story I have in my life. I say risk, but in my mind there was really no risk because I trusted my gut and I also fully believe in really trusting others with big pieces of yourself. Have I been burned plenty of time in the past? Yes, I have those scars all over my body. But that was during a time when I was a fool in how I trusted others. I put myself in peoples hands without exemption and never really felt into them and who they were. I don’t do that anymore. If something is off about someone I am around and I am getting bad vibes from them…I share, but I stop short. I hold pieces back because something inside me knows better. Many will say whatever they want about that, but inherently I know deep down who to trust and who to not. These are positive boundaries I have created for myself and time and time again this gut feeling has proved to help me more than hurt me. But yesterday, there was no need for that. No boundary needed at all. It was just pure open honesty and a whole lot of “here it is…there’s not going back from this.”

In our lives, we can either play the game scared or we can dare greatly. I can tell you that I spent a lot of my life playing scared. But now, I dare. I dare people to ignore me and forget about me, I dare life to give me as much hell as it possibly can knowing that I will only get stronger, I dare myself to do things that make me very uncomfortable, and I will continue to dare myself to move forward throughout the rest of my life. There have been pages turned and chapters closed in my life that have sealed an ancient book of what could be titled “living in fear.” This book, is titled “Living In Fear, But Doing It Anyway.”

So let’s see how all of this pans out.

Dare

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project