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New Things

She was always afraid to change.
She never wanted to get out of her comfort zone, as I'd try to kindly point out to her every now and then. She was afraid of adjusting to things that seemed new to her. She never was a risk taker; She hated taking risks; she even didn't want to fall in love in the first place. Failure was like dying to her.
But we all have to change and adjust to those changes sooner or later; life forces us to do so whether we like it or not. Everyone fails and falls somewhere along the road - it's getting up that matters.
She approached me one night under the impression that she might engage me in a "Socratic dialogue," some what-not thing she learned from one of her Education classes. She said that her professor said that Plato believed the mind was separate from the body - that it was a different entity than the physical self. The mind, or soul, enters the body at the time of birth - where the brain is already filled with all the knowledge it can possibly hold. Plato believed that when you "learn", you are actually just remembering those things that are deep in your subconscious, waiting to be woken up by some kind of trigger. "That's where the 'Socratic dialogue' comes in," she said. You engage a person in a helpful debate to stimulate the brain to arrive at what you want to drive into that person's mind, or "what you want them to remember."
So we talked. She went on and on about her supposed fears and woes, and we discussed the seeming reasons behind them. We talked and talked and talked until she couldn't ask anymore; we talked until we arrived at that particular spot I've pointed out to her so many times.
Finally, she realized that there was nothing to fear; that she was just being silly.
I guess I'm relieved. And I'm enjoying the new her: more perky, more of a risk-taker, (although moderation and caution are always key) and not afraid anymore. Well, at least less afraid than before. But it's a start, right? And a wonderful one at that. You've got to start at something to get a move on in life. It may be a cliche that the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement, but that doesn't mean that it isn't true.
Cheers to us then, and to hell with everyone else.

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