Rebuilding Rob

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

In DC Comics, the Green Lantern Corps are a team of interplanetary peacekeepers, who each monitor their own section of space, armed with their power ring.

The green lantern ring is an immensely powerful tool, it can conjure anything that the ringbearer imagines, simply out of willpower. in fact, the two main qualifications for becoming a Green Lantern are immense willpower and fearlessness.

For decades in the comic books, the ring was one weakness, was the color yellow. It made for some pretty ridiculous scenes over the years. Like this one…

Fortunately, more recent writers decided to explain it away as saying that the color yellow embodies fear and FEAR is the Green Lantern’s greatest weakness.

Fear is an amazing emotion. Like so many other things in life, it can be a good thing in limited doses, but paralyzing when allowed to run amok. Fear can protect us from danger. But if we allow fear to overwhelm us, it can completely stop us in our tracks.

Going back to school

For some odd, irrational reason, right now my greatest fear is going back to school. I know that going to graduate school and getting my masters degree would automatically ensure that I get better pay as a teacher. As of this posting, it would typically be about six to $7000 more per year just for that degree – regardless of where I teach.

As to what’s holding me back, I think it’s just laziness. Sure, I’ll tell people “I’m really not looking forward to being on the other side of the classroom again“ but right now I think I’m just a little bit lazy. I’m comfortable. I’m not doing great financially, but I’m definitely getting by. my situation“ as the young ones would call it, isn’t too bad. But it could be better. I think what I need to think more about right now is how making more money would benefit my children. It would improve their lives. And right now, that’s what’s important.

Also, completing my masters degree would allow me to finally tackle the 400 pound white elephant that’s sitting in the room: my debts.

My Debts

My real problem is that by finishing my degree, I know that I would really have to start getting my finances in order. With more money, I really would have no excuse to start addressing all of my bills, and that scares the hell out of me. I know, irrational as it is; it’s true. It’s one of those things that you’re so afraid of dealing with that you just avoid it at all costs. I’m like an ostrich with my head in the sand. But avoiding problems doesn’t make them go away; confronting them does. And the only way I can do that is by giving myself the tools to make to it happen.

But, graduate school is part of the blueprint for 2024 so I know that while it frightens me on the surface, it is something that I not only have to do, but I want to do. I have no doubt that I will keep you all updated on this.

Growing old

The problem is mother nature and father time are undefeated in the history of the human race. There’s nothing I can do to prevent this from happening. There’s nothing I can do really to conquer that fear, other than to embrace it.

I turn 50 in two months. And I’m already at a stage in my life where I can see my body physically slowing down. When I get up in the morning and climb my first flight of steps, those steps seem a little little bit taller every day.

I’ve been working out pretty routinely since the first of the year, and while that has been good for me, and it feels great, I also know that I need to work out harder than I did 10 years ago, let alone 20. While working harder, I’m getting smaller returns on the effort I put in. The law of diminishing returns is playing itself out in real life.

I don’t want to get wrinkly. I don’t want to become senile. I don’t want my bones to get brittle. More than that, I want to live longer than The Old Man did. I don’t want to miss anything in my kids’s lives. There’s really nothing I can do about growing old; so I may as well not sweat it. All I can really do is try to take good care of my mind and my body.

What are you most scared to do? What would it take for you to do it?

What is your yellow?

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

The article “The Color Yellow” originally appeared on Rebuilding Rob