Live Dangerously Brave
“Live dangerously” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Stop what you are doing right now and imagine this scenario: you have been given a terminal diagnosis and have only a short time to live. Friends and family have gathered at your bedside to say goodbye. In these final moments, you reflect back on your life and what it meant to you. Was your life worth living? Do you have any regrets? What would you have done differently? Think for a moment and then read the following statements:
I should have spent more time on the internet
I should have played more video games
I should have watched more porn
I should have worried more
I never should have forgiven that person
I should have smoked more weed
I never should have quit that job I hated
I should have eaten more fast food and donuts
I should have been less honest
I never should have left lousy guy/girl
I should have spoken up less
I should have played it more safe
Did you have any of these thoughts? Of course you didn’t. No one in the history of the world has ever had them either. But let’s face facts – most of us make choices on a daily basis that we know don’t reflect our values and that we know won’t serve us in the end. We make decisions that keep us safe and comfortable in the short-term, but don’t provide us with long-term meaning or satisfaction.
Why do we do this? It’s because we all are wired to survive, but not to thrive. Our instincts, impulses and survival circuits, learned over millennia and embedded in our DNA, lead us to play it safe and avoid danger at all costs. We avoid risk and putting ourselves out there for fear of being harmed in some way. The result is that we often lead safe but small lives. Such lives may not be abjectly terrible, but they aren’t particularly memorable or meaningful either.
We at Straight Up Treatment challenge you to try something different – live dangerously brave. It means choosing to be brave, courageous, and just dangerous enough to go after the things that bring meaning and purpose in life. Living dangerously brave means waking up each day with a mindset to use fear, pain, and misfortunes as opportunities to demonstrate personal strength and resilience. Living dangerously brave means striving to choose your own path in life and embracing the uncertainty that comes with the journey. Living life on your own terms regardless what hand of cards you were dealt.
Living dangerously brave means saying “Yes” to life and to people and not falling into the traps of cynicism, blame and despair. It means taking responsibility for your life and your choices. Living dangerously brave means making bold moves not baby steps. It means challenging authority when necessary, breaking rules on occasion, and sometimes saying things that other people don’t want to hear.
It means not putting things off until tomorrow but instead changing your life today because everything that is not this very moment is nothing. It means recognizing that life doesn’t last forever, and that that if you do not seize the opportunities before you, you may come to regret them when you’re too old and it’s too late.
Now stop reading this article and get to it… live dangerously brave!
Christine Izquierdo and Noah Laracy are the co-founders of Straight Up Treatment, an anxiety disorder specialty treatment center. Straight Up Treatment utilizes a variety of cognitive-behavioral approaches to treat anxiety-based conditions such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Social and Performance Anxiety, Panic Disorder, Depression, and Generalized Anxiety.
You can learn more about them here.
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