You aren't living life if you are scared to try.

I hope it isn't too trite to start with this. But I had a conversation with an "old friend" the other day, and it was eye-opening for me.

My old friend and I met and made fast friends eons ago under some common assumed shared values. Old friend was extremely active; the typical stuff running relays, a marathon, hikes, winter sports, even mountain biking occasionally.

Old friend has had a tough last few years, a few bad breaks, some strange bouts of illness and the requisite break-up thrown in for good measure.

Well, I sort of expected Old Friend had dusted themselves off and saw all of the rougher stuff as an opportunity to try new things, reflect on where they had been in previous pursuits; that sort of thing.

In fact, I was excited to get Old Friend headed down this path while offering a hand..

But, over the last couple of weeks after inquiring about OF's level of activity around life in general it became very apparent that OF's had some unusual road blocks.

"I'm not up for running much outdoors, I just wouldn't want to get caught out there without water or have to walk home."

And so OF runs the treadmill at the gym.

If it were isolated to a couple of months it wouldn't be that big of a thing, but it's on going. And it isn't limited to not running outside, there are a mound of excuses about doing much of anything outside of punching the clock at work.

Somewhere along the line my Old Friend became frightened to live.

I don't have grand pronouncements to make about how to live, I mean, who am I to say?

But I can say that the absolute worst thing a person can do is dig a moat around them in tough times; it's not the same thing as self-destructive behavior and I think the "moat" of excuses is semi-excusable socially because it's not the worst thing a person can do while they are getting back on their feet.

It's just my feeling that if you live in fear of trying something semi-difficult and attempt it with a half-measure it's hardly living life to the fullest.

Old Friend.. if you wind up reading this I'm imploring you to get the heck out of the gym.