“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.” - Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin was a French-born American writer. She journaled regularly from age 11 until her death at 73. Then she just published the entries.
She was a shamanic character with a BIG life.
She danced flamenco, modelled for artists and practiced psychoanalysis (studying under Freud’s buddy Otto Rank).
Nin also had many notable affairs relationships with the American intelligentsia - like banned-book writer Henry Miller, filmmaker Ian Hugo and of course, Freud’s buddy Otto Rank.
Most people measure life in time. Nin’s Law suggests that life has spatial dimensions. What does it feel like for life to shrink or expand? What even is a “big” life?
I believe you have an intuitive sense of this. Some things make you feel bigger. Some things make you contract. This is not an illusion.
Even if you’re not a shamanoid, you probably secretly aspire for your life to be big. This is why people set goals, quit their jobs or go to therapy. It’s to feel expansiveness.
Today we’ll save a bunch of time and money and cut straight to the point. If you want a bigger life you need more courage.
Courage is the ability to act anyway in the face of fear.
It’s annoyingly simple. There’s no secret other than feel the discomfort and act anyway. No hypnotherapy. No nootropics. No fancy techniques. Just a clear image of your edge and a decision to physically move beyond it:
See this as your reminder that courage is a valid move in the game. You can feel discomfort AND still act. It’s easy to forget. It’s tempting to think that our only option is to diagnose and resolve the discomfort first.
More importantly, if Anais is correct then courage is closest thing to a free lunch in life. If you can stomach some discomfort it’s literally free. Yet it consistently makes us feel alive while generating life’s greatest opportunities, relationships and adventures.
Practice:
Take an area of your life and ask yourself “What would I do if I was fearless?” Be honest and clear.
Take that scary thing you came up with in Step 1. Go right up to it and give it a light kiss. Lean against it. Graze it with your fingers. You can do that right? You don’t have to run into it. Just “hang out” at your edge.
Repeat for everything.
Daniel
PS - TLDR:
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
Typo 'ask ask' in the practice part.
I looove this style of writing with a practice to apply.
Thanks!