All my life I’ve been terrified of uncertainty. Every time a door opened, I was so afraid of failure that I said “no.” The whole time I thought that I was protecting myself. If I don’t say yes there’s no chance of failure, and if I don’t fail, my heart won’t get broken. What I never thought of, was that not saying yes, not trying new things and this fear of failing was the actual failure. Okay, I didn’t fail, but I didn’t try either. That left me with series of “what if?” questions that I will never have answers to. “What if I took it and succeeded?” I realized that even if I failed, I would be at the same place I am right now, so saying no to awesome opportunities when I had nothing but time on my hands was a failure.
We go through life protecting ourselves from heartbreak, when that’s exactly what we need to learn and evolve. Making mistakes, failing- these are so important. Sure, learning from books and professors is crucial. At the end of the day, they are other people’s experiences and they will never be as valuable as your own. I’m sure that what I’m telling you right now are things that you have heard before so I’ll share a little story.
When I was in high school, I was afraid of being true to myself. I knew what I liked but I never expressed it. I love writing so much! There was always so much I wanted to share with the world! I had stories playing in my head both fictional and real, but I never wrote them down. My fear was, “What if no one likes it?” or “What if people think I’m crazy for creating stories like these?” I could lay on my back or go for a walk and create an entire movie in my head for hours! One day, I decided to write them down and it got worse! It’s like I couldn’t stop! Yet I never shared them with anyone. I would finish my stories and throw them out because it was the end of my therapy. Today I wish I had kept those stories! So what if they weren’t good? I loved them!
It’s in college that I started to let people read whatever I come up with. Someone asked me if I wanted an article published one day, and I thought back on my stories and I just said “yes.” I haven’t stopped since! I hope I never will. I have met so many people since then! Other passionate writers, people who relate to what I write and people who are passionate about the same topics!
The point of all this is to tell you to never be afraid to do what you love. Don’t think about others because what they think doesn’t matter. You know what makes you happy, and it’s definitely not someone else’s opinion that will keep the fire in you burning.
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