“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
— Frank Herbert, Dune.
Been thinking about Dune on my last couple bike rides. I like to generally think that getting out biking, and more importantly, finding adventure, helps me be my best self and make a more positive impact on those around me. But I have gotten out recently with people that are faster than me and that has brought into focus another way I can use these outings to engineer a better me, and that is through harder efforts, which I admit I am afraid of.
When I pedal hard up a hill and am out of breath, I let all sorts of fear-ful thoughts flood in. I’m going to have an aneurysm. I’m going to have an asthma attack. I’m going to have a heart attack. Fear is holding me back — embracing hard efforts can be a way of moving through that fear and crystallizing my identity more.
Hard efforts help make me emotionally stronger because it puts fears front and center and requires that I consciously acknowledge the effect that fear is having upon me, then move through it to only the effort. Then I can laugh at myself for having held myself back.
Sub-urban Adventure 