If I only had the nerve.

I've been thinking about change and bravery lately. I think you have to be brave to be a self-published author, and you have to be able to embrace change. Friends tell me I'm brave, but it's the last thing I'd put on a list of my greatest attributes.



And I hate change.

Someone wrote once that you shouldn't work on your weaknesses because they will always remain weaker than your strengths. You should work to make your strengths as strong as they can be. Perhaps they're right and I shouldn't try to be any braver than I already am. And yet, when I want to do something, I find a way to do it, even if my first steps frighten me beyond all reason.

So I may be headed for a slender limb holding the best fruit, both in my career and in my personal life. It may snap and drop me before I reach the goal, but I'm still going to reach for it. Even if I don't get the fruit, I may be led to something more interesting, if I can change my reason for climbing the tree.

It was interesting to me to read my horoscope today, from Free Will Astrology.

"The Buddhist meditation teacher Chogyam Trungpa said that one of the best ways to become fearless is to cultivate tenderness. As you expand your heart's capacity to feel compassionate affection for the world, you have less and less to be afraid of. That's the opposite of the conventional wisdom, which says you become brave by toughening up, by reinforcing your psychic armor. Of all the signs of the zodiac, you Pisceans are best set up to benefit from Trungpa's method -- now even more than usual."

I've  a lot to consider with this idea of becoming less tough in order to be more brave, and you may not believe that horoscopes are relevant or useful. Still, I think it's darned timely that my horoscope is telling me all about something that I am already consumed with pondering.

JUST A REMINDER: I still have a contest going on with my newest book. Check it out!

http://gaylecarline.blogspot.com/2014/05/but-wasnt-there-another-contest.html