I wish I'd had more ice-cream ...?

As some of you know, I give myself one or more significant challenges each year. It is a tradition that goes back several years to the time when I discovered that the Danes are the people who suffer most from anxiety in the whole word.

Every fifth Dane ( I am danish as you might know) suffers from anxiety at some point in life. Not everyone is hit equally hard by this, and there are different kinds of anxiety, but the overall figure is still so high that we can rightly refer to it as a common disease.

Anxiety disorders is ALSO the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year.

Not everyone is hit equally hard by this, and there are different kinds of anxiety, but the overall figure is still so high that we can rightly refer to it as a common disease.

With that in mind, I decided to make myself keep challenging this trend.

I simply write down everything that I'm afraid of or anxious about (or things I find creepy or just basically uncomfortable). It's a long list. It may be something as trivial as sleeping alone in a forest, skiing down the black trail, swimming in ice cold water on a January morning ... to climbing up and down a wind turbine, travelling to a "dangerous" country by myself, to something as simple as eating a mite.

You name it, the list is long. I then make a mark next to the challenges, which I think I have the surplus energy to fight against in the next year - I set a deadline and I tell my family and friends about my decision.

In my DNA, I am a Jutlander, and that means that if I want to be sure to do something about it, it's best if there is a deadline and a fee or some other expense associated with the challenge (If I have paid for something, I also show up ;-).

Two years ago, I learned to ski, just by signing up for a ski marathon. 4 days before the race I got a ski instructor who taught me the basics. And then I managed to finish the race. Now I know how to ski. In the same way, I have jumped, swum, run, dived, cycled or travelled through numerous challenges.

One more extreme than the other.  

I have a friend who has a fear of heights (as do I). He has bought a ten-time entry card for the tower of the Church of Our Savior. It forces him to regularly go up there to face his anxiety. And he dutifully goes up there - anxious and affected by that which scares him. But he DOES it.

Because he knows that if he doesn't, there will be more and more anxiety until eventually, he won't dare leave his home after 11 in the morning.

Anxiety grows on you!

At first, you're a little scared of those who are different from yourself, then you get scared of certain situations and you avoid them, but then suddenly, you're afraid of more and more things... 

Some people are even afraid to be successful or to do well, so they'd rather not try to be good at anything. Anxiety is crazy and totally irrational. And if you don't face it, it can ruin your life. 

Life is wonderful and it deserves to be lived. When my mother got cancer for the first time, several years ago, I asked her what she had regretted in her life - her response was touchingly simple: "I wish I'd had more ice-cream in my life. " It sounds trivial, but it is really about her, being the control freak that she - like many of us - is, not enjoying life while she has it. Go on and drink that glass of wine. Eat the waffle, travel, experience, love with an open heart and enjoy life. Seize the present and the opportunities and leave the excuses back home. Wake up your dream.

Even though the media and especially some politicians try to appeal to your fear, you must try to be strong. Do you really have a reason to be so scared? Afraid of being abandoned, fired, assaulted, raped, robbed or getting sick?

Or as Benny Andersen (danish writer - see notes) writes, "For many years I took the sorrows in advance, but it hasn't really given me any joy."

I've grown up with "if you leave Denmark and something happens to you, you're in trouble. Denmark is the world's safest and best place to live. "We grow up with a fear of leaving this place. It MAY be the world's best place to live - but it's because of what is here and not because of the things that we fear elsewhere.

Now, having travelled and lived in and visited more than 50-55 countries in recent years, I cannot disagree more. Denmark is a lovely country, for sure, but it isn't necessarily paradise on earth. And yes, you are quite safe here, but you can be so in other countries as well. The world isn't all barbarians and pirates.

The world is filled with helpful people who think you are wildly exciting and who would like to share their experiences, attitudes and dreams with you. Scents, food, music and traditions - I would die if I could not travel to all the lands and empires in the world. 

There was a time, when I was actually a little scared of traveling. Afraid that something would happen to me when I traveled. Alone and as a woman.

Right until that day when a woman lost both her legs in the street crossing by which I lived in Copenhagen. She got run over.

I realized that it could happen anywhere. So I might as well potentially die while I do something that I think is fun. 

One of the many advantages of my countless travels is precisely that I have had to trust people and believe in the best in humans. Whether it has been on my travels to Thailand, Burma, China, Mexico, India, the United States or the Middle East - I have been deeply dependent on the locals and on their kindness to me, hailing from the cold north. You CAN'T be afraid of people while relying on them to help you. The two things do not mix.

Do you dare to get up and look out there and experience the world? If you don't, what is holding you back? Fear or desire - know the difference, because there IS a world of difference. 

Thank you for reading this.

Benny Andersen; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Andersen