The journey never ends

I’m just thinking of some emotional experiences I had on my journey until the end of last year. I was confronted with pain and guided by beauty and pleasure, joy and trust. These experiences were intense and I think I learned a life lesson for myself. I want to share these thoughts, because I think that we are all on the same journey.

There is no light without darkness, no darkness without light.

Often we choose to avoid pain, we fear the pain and by making this decision we just too often accept avoiding also pleasure, beauty and joy. We shy away from what could hurt, harm us or simply be uncomfortable. We act out our fear, though we can’t know what is waiting for us, don’t even know if there will be pain. It is our striving for security that displaced curiosity. Growing up we are told to create a safe space for ourselves, and later for our loved ones, too. They call it taking responsibility. But how will we live up to that? How can we act responsibly in situations we avoided until then? How can we know the answer if we didn’t dare to see, feel, and understand the question?
We can’t run away from the experiences we are supposed to make. There is a path for each and every one of us and this path leads us through everything, through darkness and into light. This path is called life.
How to face it then?
Curiosity is for children, security for adults? When will we have learned all the lessons we need to learn? Will the day ever come we don’t need to experience anymore? No more pain, no more pleasure?
Holding on to striving for security keeps us in fear, fear of the very experience of life. Fear as a diffuse presumption about something we can’t know. It is blocking us, holding us back and down, keeping the fire low, maybe just glowing in the dark. 
There is a fire in everyone of us. It keeps us warm, it keeps us alive.
By shying away from potential pain we avoid the whole experience, an experience that could teach us, make us grow, make us see, understand and realize our powers, our capacities, the tools we have to keep that fire burning, next time, when it’s getting dark and cold outside. 
When will we stop avoiding and accept the path? Jump into that river, the flow of life, not avoiding the cold, knowing that we carry the fire within?
After all we will regret what we didn’t do. There is no such thing as a useless experience.
After darkness will always be light.