Life Lived Boldly

This morning I woke up from a dream and I was afraid! In the dream I was dying from some rare and incurable disease (ironic right) and I, upon waking, could clearly remember being afraid of death. Once awake though I was no longer afraid. In my waking life I do not fear death because I realize in my weakness (through faith) that there is nothing to fear in death.

One of my favorite quotes about Death comes from Socrates who wrote, “To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils."

It is sad but true that many of us make decisions in our life based on our fears. People get married to the wrong people because they are afraid of being alone. People turn down new opportunities because they are afraid of the unknown. To often we play it safe because the other option involves risk or change and it scares us. 

The thing is though, life is not a dream. It must be lived boldly. We must take chances or we risk  waking up at the end of our life finding we have wasted it all. Now that would be a nightmare.