Tomorrow, I take a one-way flight to South America.

It feels surreal to write this. When I was a dentist, I thought the most bad-ass way to live was to write a book whilst travelling the world.

But I never thought it possible.

Let me explain why.

Committed to previous choices

I didn’t like being a dentist.

But I felt trapped by the 10 years and 6 figures I had invested in becoming one. Logically, I knew I had the key: change direction. But emotionally, I could think of nothing more scary.

Instead of listening to my discontent, I drowned it with doubt.

• Who are you to complain when you have a great job?
• Why would you throw away such a sure thing?
• What will people think when you fail?

And my favourite self-abusing question:

Why can’t you just learn to be happy instead?

It was torture.

I hated feeling like a coward. Yet my actions only compounded as each year dragged by. I’d never taken a big risk because I had such a crippling fear of failure.

But then I began to write.

Which meant I began to think.

The wake-up call

Think about what, you might ask?

At the risk of killing the mood…

Death.

Because I began writing about my health issues.

Turns out being diagnosed with a brain tumour and broken neck at 16 is quite traumatic. But I’d never thought about it before. Not really, anyway. I was a proud Stoic. I didn’t realise there was a fine line between reframing and repression.

Sob story aside, it’s the best thing to happen to me.

They found it during a scan for something much less serious.

It was a pure stroke of luck that a surgeon noticed a tiny shadow and asked for a second scan.

I shared the story on Twitter on August 21st, 2021.

It went mega-viral. In it, I finished it with a line from Confucius:

We have two lives. But the second begins when we realize we have only one.

People told me how brave I was. But their compliments felt like a magnifying glass on my hypocrisy.

Why?

Because I was 29 years old. My life was meant to be over in a year. Yet here I was, acting like I had all the time in the world.

I asked myself a question:

If I were to die today, would I be happy with my choices?

The answer was uncomfortable: Hell no.. 2 weeks later, I quit dentistry. Life took a left turn that has been crazy ever since. Because I finally understood the truth:

It is better to try and fail than never try at all.

Sure, there’s no guarantee of success. But there is a guarantee of death. And mortality has a funny way of making you think more clear.

It is the ultimate self-bullshit filter.

Make the most of what you have

Now, I’m no philosopher.

But the older I get, the more I realise the point of life is that it ends.

And perhaps much sooner than you think. Every day, bad things happen to someone like you. A car turns poorly. An oven catches fire. A diagnosis is missed.

You are not owed a long life.

And it’s already a brief flash. You get to decide how bright you burn.

The problem?

Fear makes every choice feel fatal.

Shit, I get more scared approaching a cute girl in a coffee shop than I do flying halfway across the world to pursue my dream.

If that’s not a sign the monkey-mind is fickle, I don’t know what is.

The funny thing about fear

I used to think the point of life was to become fearless.

But what a boring way to live. The aim is to be terrified all the time. Because that tells you you are alive. Courage is not the absence of fear, but action in spite of it.

Every risk rewrites your map of reality.

You realise it isn’t so frightening after all.

In fact, it’s rather fun. Fear becomes the friend that pushes you to do what you truly want. You begin to search it out because what else are you meant to do with your life except live it?

(I apologise to every cute girl I’m about to embarrass over the next 3 months).

At the end of the day, if you try and it doesn’t work—great.

At least you had the guts to give it a go. At least, on your deathbed, you can look back with a smile on your face and a story to tell.

So let me ask you:

If you were to die tomorrow, would you be happy with your choices?

If the answer is no, don’t freak out. You get one shot in life, but many shots within it. Decide what you want, then tuck it away.

Because you only have to take the first step. And then another. And then another.

The path reveals itself the more you walk.

You just need to be brave enough to get going,

Kieran

P.S.

When you ignore fear, you create the problem you’re avoiding. This essay is an example. I have been too scared to write longer-form ‘life stuff’ even though it’s a topic I want to explore.

My fear was that people wouldn’t take me seriously. But the more I avoided it, the less I took myself seriously

All I know is I feel alive when I write this.

And in the long run, when you follow your energy, good things happen.

Give yourself permission to grow.

(and let me know if you enjoy this stuff. I’m only human. Your attention is my validation.)