The new Dune is coming out and I’m both excited and worried. With such a huge universe and, dare I say, cult following, the production company can’t afford to screw this up. The trailer I saw looked awesome, so my hopes are up. Then again, my hopes were sky high about the new Mulan, and the reviews are all pretty bad.

I’m crossing my fingers anyway.

That’s not what I wanted to talk about. Today, I wanted to talk a bit about fear as it relates to anxiety and all those other pesky negative emotions. The subject’s been on my mind off and on for a while now. I’ve used the whole “fear is the mind killer” spiel as part of my Writer’s Block class. Fear and anxiety are often a symptom of a larger worry that’s preventing someone from reaching their creative goals, and just like in Dune, you have to face it and let it pass through you.

It’s easier said than done. I know. Boy, how I know.

I got to stare down one such fear this week when I took on a new project. It’s wasn’t that I didn’t have faith that I could do it. With enough time and research I definitely could. The fear that was staring back at me was that it was new and there were too many variables that I didn’t understand yet. I was afraid that even with my best effort I was going to miscalculate and end up wasting a lot of effort creating something that couldn’t be used.

For me, time is precious beyond belief. The only thing more precious than time is the energy to be able to use it well, which is a subject for another day.

This stupid set of fears not only made finishing this assignment that much harder, it totally stressed me out.

Part of me believes that I’m the only one who rides this emotional roller coaster far too often for my own good. This isn’t true, of course. There are hoards of people who constantly push their limits and do amazing things. The difference here is that no one gets to see all the fear and anxiety behind their success. The part of the discussion about the price of taking even the smallest steps forward is often missing and all we see is how easy that success seems

Fun fact: Getting hard things done is, well, hard.

The great thing about facing challenge and finding success is that the next time you have to face a similar challenge, it’s that much easier.

I’m all for easier.

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