“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
Recently I had a professor ask the class to write about our deepest fears. I had to be something real. It couldn’t be spiders, deep water, or getting murdered by a stranger.
When I sat down to write this reflection, I honestly had no idea where to begin. It proved a task far bigger than what I had imagined. It became more of an emotional journey to the deepest parts of myself, parts I wasn’t sure I was ready to face just yet.
I made sure the room was completely silent, and then I started to think. I thought about all of my failures and success in the past, about every time I thought I was truly afraid. What I came up with honestly shocked me. I stumbled upon a quote by Marianne Williamson that I mulled over for a long while before realizing that I did not agree with her statement. Williamson claims that our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. I realized that my deepest fear is being remarkably unremarkable: being just average.
In a society that idolizes the extremes in beauty, athletics, wealth, and pretty much every other aspect you can think of, being average is a horrible alternative.
I realized that being complacent is dangerous. Not having a fire of passion inside of you is the worst thing that could happen to someone. Not wanting to embrace the beauty of life is scary.
Being ordinary is my greatest fear. Having people describe me in plain, average words, is something that I cannot even begin to stomach. I realized that this fear quickly turned into a desire.
A desire to be an individual.
A desire to embrace every flaw that I have.
A desire to stay true to who I am, even if that means standing alone.
A desire to fight for what I feel is right, even when everyone else thinks I’m wrong.
Embrace the fact that your hair looks like a lion’s mane when it’s humid outside.
Embrace the fact that one of your eyes is a little smaller than the other.
Embrace the fact that your smile is a little crooked.
Those little things are beautiful. They are what set you apart from the rest of the world. Don’t settle for normal. Normal is for people who are afraid of life.