It seems we stop our lives short of happiness because of our fears. Especially now, with the economy being the way it is, a lot of people are now living what they have feared.
Often I am asked “what is worse to live with: fear or regret?”
A few years ago my father, my sisters and I were in Rome. We had the opportunity to go through the Catacombs. Being claustrophobic I decided I was not going to go in them. I could think of a lot of other things I would rather be doing then going deep underground and walking through a maze of hallways leading to hidden rooms where a long time ago people gathered to secretly have mass, celebrate their faith and bury their dead.
We got to the Catacombs and I stood in line as my family and the other people on the trip with us were waiting to go in. I thought to myself that this fear of mine is stopping me from even trying. I disregarded the whole experience and wasn’t even willing to try because I have this fear. I thought about how two days from now I will be sitting on a plane on my way home. I thought about how I would regret that I didn’t even try to go down into the Catacombs. I thought about how I don’t know if I will ever be in Rome again and if I would ever get a “do-over” on skipping this experience today.
So I decided I would try. I thought (okay, this will make you laugh) I thought, I will go down and if it is that bad I will turn around a come back up. Yeah, nice try, you cannot turn around and come back. But I realized that too late. I realized that after I had descended the stairs down deep underground. It was getting dark and narrow. As light from the open world behind me was getting dimmer and dimmer I turned around to reassure myself that I was fine and I could get out if I wanted.
No, I couldn’t… there was a river of people flowing down the stairs behind me.
I was stuck… I had no choice but to keep moving… The only way out was to go through.
Hmmm, sounds like a metaphor for life.
So, I got right up to the Priest who was leading the tour and stayed on him. We started walking and he was giving us the history and interesting information about the Catacombs. Blah, blah, blah. Get me out of here!
At this point the walls were only my shoulders width apart, it was tight. We turned a corner and I saw the most beautiful thing that I would see my entire time in Italy:
The “exit” sign at the end of the path.
Yes, it really struck me as odd and looked completely out of place to have a lighted exit sign in the Catacombs, but I didn’t care, at that moment I loved the person who put it there. I was so happy we were almost finished and thought to myself, “see, that was no big deal“.
The priest leaned down and put up a chain blocking that part of the hallways and began leading us deeper and deeper back into the Catacombs and further away from my beloved exit sign. “We are going to go all the way back, tucked into the far corner to see one of the rooms where they used to say mass, isn’t that exciting?” the priest asked me in his Italian accent, that made it actually almost sound exciting. “No, not really, I was liking the looks of the exit sign.” I replied. He laughed and said “Ahhh, claustrophobic? It was brave of you to come down anyway, good for you.” Again, sounding much nicer with the accent.
We got to the back corner, I was still alive. I was the first person into the room but stayed at the doorway, where the last person into the room should have stood. People filed in the room and it made me more and more nervous. Eventually, everyone was in and the room was packed. I was still at the doorway, but that wasn’t good enough. I left the room and squatted down against the wall in the hallway. I looked way down to the beginning of this hallway and watched people pass and head in the direction of the exit sign. It made me feel more blocked in. Now there are groups of people between me and the exit sign.
My stomach hurt and although it was cold down there, I was sweating.
Eventually we finished the tour and we got out. I turned to my sister and said “I will never do that again.” she turned to me and said “you know, I bet you would, cause now you know what to expect and look, you’re fine.“
She is right. I walked through my fear and I was fine and I have no regret.
I know this is a simple story of fear and regret, but we can all see how our fears can result in regrets that are much more painful and much more crippling. I have learned that our fears can stop us from really living our life to the fullest. Our fears and our fears alone are what create our regrets. It is our fear of something that causes us to not love all the way, not live all the way and not experience true joy all the way.
Our fears we can walk through, we can always conquer our fears, but sometimes we cannot undo our regrets. The more we walk through and fight through our fears, the less regrets we will have in the end.
I never regretted going into the Catacombs, but I would have always regretted it if I hadn’t.
Getting Unstuck 