I was listening to The Walk by Father Roderick, a podcast that I never thought I’d be listening to but is actually really good, and the episode was May 19, ’23, What Needs Pruning In Your Life?

The episode talks about balancing the things others want you to do with the things you want to do, and how to tell the difference. Yeah, it never really occurred to me that I’d get those two things mixed up but actually it’s pretty easy.

Anyway, he explained that one way to tell them apart is by identifying whether you feel relief or accomplishment when you finish them – the former being the indicator that you’re doing it for others.

The idea is that for each thing you ask yourself whether you would feel relieved or accomplished when finishing the task.

But what if there’s nothing on your list that you think would make you a sense of accomplishment? Is that a sign that you need better stuff on your list? Or, are you really able to judge accomplishment vs. relief in advance? Or, is there some other mental fuzz clouding things up?

As I looked through my list, I didn’t see anything that I expected to bring a sense of accomplishment. They were all items I needed to get done ‘or else’ or the loose boards that needed nailing that we all have in our lives.

So I started to try to come up with some items and as I mulled them over I felt something that took me a while to figure out – I was afraid of them. The feeling presented as doubt, but when I said “So what if it doesn’t work, you’re not out anything” suddenly new reasons to avoid them started showing up.

I think for me fear is like that thing in physics that you can’t actually see when you look at it, but you can see its shadow and the effects it causes. When you’ve eliminated all the other possible causes of the shadow or effect, what you’ve got left is fear.