Living from the inside out

So I realize and fully accept that I am one of those people who talks about their dog a little too often. For some reason, I seem to see things more clearly since he joined my life 3 years ago. I have always believed that nature has a lot to tell us about how to do life and that that the physical world has so much to show us about how to do relationships and how to have emotions.
Tonight I was talking with someone about the motivation behind what we do and say. So often we get paralyzed because we feel uncertain of how things will turn out. We don't say what we are thinking because we are unsure of how it will be received or if the recipient will reciprocate the feelings. So often we hold back on going for what we really want because we lack the guarantee that it will "all work out." So often we back away from things we might like - or love - because we're not sure if we will be good at it.
I remember that when I first adopted Levon, he was very ill. I had to take him to the vet, force feed him every day and force tubes with medicine into his mouth for the first several months of his life. I remember in particular one time, in his already fragile state, he got a hold of a tiny piece of snail poison.  A tiny snail poison is a major problem for a little, runtly dog. He was rushed, of course, off the vet and had to immediately be hooked up to IVs.  What I distinctly remember from this is the vet saying, "We THINK he'll be ok." We THINK. Not - here is the treatment, it's expensive and a pain, but it will work. No. The reality was we "THINK" he'll be ok.  What I realized, in that moment, was that this little creature was helping me live from the inside out.  I made a choice to give him the treatment, to feed him the meds, to watch over him for months NOT because I was guaranteed a positive outcome, but because I loved him.  There was no outward guarantee or promise, but there was an internal drive to act because I loved him.  I did not nurse him because I knew he would be OK. I nursed him because I loved him.
And what I experienced with him was a pure experience of making a decision based on internal motivation rather than external guarantee. I didn't need Levon to fully recover to make the time and effort worth it. It already was worth it.  Because I loved him, not because I knew for sure what was going to happen.

What in your life are you waiting for a guarantee, a promise, a prediction to start?
What if you let your passion, desire, curiosity or love be enough motivation.  What if it were already worth it just because it is important to you...