Last weekend Ausra’s cousin was visiting us and we had a lovely time interacting while walking in the old town of Vilnius. We even went up to see the stunning panorama from the bell tower of Vilnius University St John’s church. That’s the highest building in all of old town and hundreds of old red roofs were under our noses. Ausra was brave enough to climb the viewing place.
She has never done this before although she went to this bell tower many times. We all were very proud of her. Although we used an elevator to go up, we climbed down those 197 steps on foot. Even now, when 2 days have passed since this visit, I still have some muscle fatigue in the back of my legs because of climbing down. That morning we had a breakfast during which I talked to Ausra’s cousin about what it is we are doing online. I told her that if she has a special skill set (and she has - she is a high-in-demand physics teacher), she could teach a global audience through sharing her knowledge online on her blog. I also told her about my new From 0 to 10 Pull-Up challenge during which Ausra was quite skeptical because she saw me fail so many times before at various experiments and challenges in the past. But her cousin seemed impressed and said that my speech was inspiring to her. Then of course I suggested to her she could do some kind of challenge herself and share the process online. It was then when her enthusiasm left her and she said, she couldn’t even attempt to do it. She didn’t believe she could. How is it that some people start without even knowing how they will reach the end goal? It’s like jumping into the dark pool at night, not knowing how deep the pool is. It could be a few feet deep in which case you might break your neck and it could be 10 feet deep, enough to dive safely. But they still do it. They believe. And others don’t ever start because they don’t believe they have what it takes even though it’s clear for people who have done it that they can. They don’t have the bravery to believe. Therefore they feel they can’t, shouldn’t and won’t pursue their dreams. It’s exactly the opposite of what Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing: “You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” I hope you’re doing just that.
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