The challenge to live bigger

Recently, I came across a box of old notebooks that I’d brought home from my parents’ house last summer. I shook the dust off of the lid and picked up a stack of the vanilla lined notebooks we were given in high school.

I opened up the first notebook from an English class and had to play a little trombone (and then put on my progressives) to read the words. I’d forgotten just how small I used to write in high school and college.

That small writing was purposeful, not because I wanted to torture my teachers and force them to adopt bifocals before they turned 50, but because I made every effort to take up as little space as possible in all areas of my life.

I was painfully shy and wilted under any kind of attention, positive or negative, and spent much of my time trying to disappear. I worked hard to take up as little space as possible.

As an adult, I’ve worked hard to feel that I have a right to live bigger.

When I say live bigger, what I really mean is to take risks. I started taking those risks when I worked at a weekly newspaper. I wrote stories and took photos and did a weekly column and my name was on everything. Some people liked my work, some people didn’t, and I withered under the weight of my exposure. After one particularly critical email regarding one of my pieces, I walked away from writing publicly. It would be 13 years before I tried again, when I began keeping a blog.

It is hard sometimes, for many of us, to put our real, authentic selves out to the world. To share our creativity, our artwork, our writing. A quick glance through YouTube or any other social media platform quickly highlights the risks that we take by putting ourselves out there. In this day of endless access to technology, it is easy for many people to lob hurtful comments and cruel observations behind the veil of anonymity.

There are many ways that we might struggle to take up space. When I joined my first commercial gym I felt so out of place and so clueless that I struggled to feel like I had a right to any space in the gym. It took me months to learn how to respectfully claim space for me.

One of the greatest gifts I’ve received while working here at Spurling is learning  to let myself live a bit bigger. As Doug and I recorded our 100th podcast on Monday, that was one of the observations I shared with him. I have learned, and I continue to learn how to take more risks and put more of my authentic self out there to the world.

So whatever project, whatever daydream, whatever woolgather (what a fantastic synonym for daydream) you have, I hope that you can find it within yourself to follow through – to take the risk. Because the world might be a bit scarier when you start to share more of yourself, but it’s a better place when you do.