Plateau

  When it comes to life, the life lived by the author of this article anyway, there are very few fears that are experienced on a regular basis. True, fear strikes everyone and some people it assaults at on a daily basis and even more so with other people. The removal of that fear is not what has been active in my mind as of late, it is more the understanding of what I fear and trying my best to avoid it that is what has been the challenge. While many people would attempt to remove a fear, the fears I face most I embrace. I attempt to understand them, and, if possible, I use them to motivate choices that have to be made. 

  I would be thinking in a very lofty way if I were to say that there isn't a twinge of feeling that strikes when I am standing high above water that is flowing the bridge I stand upon. I have no fear of water (the fact that I simply do not enjoy swimming aside) and I posses little to no fear of bridges (although some are extremely under-maintained) however, the thing that would cause the racing in my chest would be the height itself; I have an aversion to heights. I do not hate them nor am I afraid of them honestly. I've flown in planes and flown planes and never in the planes themselves have I felt the pressure that I find when I stand too close to an edge, stand up too far in my seat on a Ferris' wheel and so on. My aversion to heights is not something that I find flowing into every encounter I have with heights, just a select few, however, the fear I have about life is something that finds it's way into every job I have had in my life; the fear of a plateau.

  To make my point simple and as easy to relate as possible, I want this to be understood; I DO NOT LET MYSELF PLATEAU. When I think of a plateau I think of a nice, safe, flat place. We may have climbed a mountain, one that we were waiting and training to climb for the past two months. We now have arrived at a point on the mountain where there is a nice, relaxing plateau to rest on. While it may appear to be easy and relaxing to use this moment to gather our thoughts and then possibly continue on later, I do not (or try my best not to) allow myself to do this. I find this desire, the need to run from such a safe place in my life, to be one of my biggest motivating factors. It has driven me out of jobs, away from friends and even into the blogging that (in all honesty) may be the only thing you ever know me for. I refuse to allow myself to stay in one place for too long. I refuse to plateau.

  While this may not seem like a fear of any sort, the kind of drive it inspires in me is more like that which would be found in fear rather than that which is made by comfortable counsel. I have moved to positions that I was unsure about simply because I felt as though doing what I had been doing had nothing more that could benefit me, why repeat what you are already great at? 

  In short, I cannot allow myself to stay on one level of learning, living, working or listening too long. I have to go deeper, know more or change the environment so the people around me know more than me. I have to keep a mind that is ready to learn. The information being received is just as important is the information being given.

-Mattaghetti

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