Facing your fears

Being afraid is one of the feelings that can remind us the most of how alive we are. Being afraid means fearing the unknown not for what it is but for the consequences it might have on you. So to resume, we are scared because we do not want to be the casualties of the "new".

Now having said that, danger might be imminent and even inevitable is certain situations however we always have a choice. Either to flee or to face that danger. Now in some cases, the first option is largely the preferable one, but in the common world where being onstage is terrifying, we can always try.

That is one thing I learnt, either you keep running or you stand. You wait for the storm to come. What is worse is the anticipation not the actual storm. I also learnt that it is never as bad as it seems and even if it was, as long as your are STILL standing after, you are the winner in the story.

To be totally honest, I am not saying we should face all of our fears because sometimes there can also be good in it. The fear of failure pushes certain individuals to the peak of their potential and the fear of being forgotten encourages artists to be original and to stand out. Sometimes, we do lose control of the fear we have and we let it reign over us, like puppets.

That is when we have got to learn how to say no. No to our instincts that push us to recluse areas that only we know and in which we feel safe. If we do not force ourselves to get out there and to sometimes take risks, then life becomes meaningless. Then the purpose of having a brain which allows us to explore our surroundings becomes null.

It is an extremely arduous task, to reassure ourselves that danger does not mean The End. As a student in the economic stream of my school, I can strongly say that the probability that you succeed keeps growing with the number of failures you encounter. Each failure can teach us what we cannot learn through achievements.

My father made me read a book, and if I were to explain the plot it would sound eccentric and ridiculous therefore I will not, but when he handed me that book he said "It changed my life". I was so sceptic you should have seen my face. I somehow decided I would still give it a shot, because if my father, whom I admire, learnt something from that then I could too. So I did. I read that book in an hour, it wasn't long. At the end of my reading I realised my father was right. This book was way deeper than I could have ever imagined. I truly started to understand the toll it had taken on my life when I found myself talking about it to a friend. This was mind boggling for me. How did that author, Spencer Johnson, know how to convey a message that was and still is changing my vision of the world?

How do you know what is waiting for you when you are too afraid to explore? How do you know that after difficulties don't come great rewards?

I am someone who gets scared very easily. I love responsibilities but when I have to start taking risks that might have long-lasting consequences I panic.

So, after I read that book, I realised every morning when I wake up, I have to ask myself the same question: What would you do if you weren't afraid?

I find this question so beautiful. It opened up my mind on all the possibilities I had never considered before. It allowed me to see that security and fear were not always the best options.

That was a long, messy thread of thoughts, but I got it out of my mind.

For people who are interested, here is the link to a video which is basically a short cartoon of the book I keep mentioning, I warned you, it is strange but it still captures the essence of the plot:

My Empire is down but I am still standing

Here are a few words, that escaped my mind to live in a world which cannot be materialized. Every human, during their lives, no matter how short or long they live, build an Empire. That Empire might be people who love you, people who hate you, places and memories, smells and looks and funny stories. It might be a pet, or an actual Empire. What really counts, is what that Empire means. It will still be alive, even after you die.

When I say my Empire is down, it means I've lost a few people including myself, I left them or ...they left me. It means that I don't feel as happy or as secure anymore. Our Empires are cocoons to which we can run and hide. Mine feels empty. Teenage years are full of ups and downs and I am going through a down. No matter what that down actually is, I need to remind myself that the one element which I feel like I lost is not what consists of my Empire.
What is the root to my kingdom are my ideas and my very own vision of the world. It feels like my Empire has fallen and for all I know it might be very true. However, I am still standing. I am still strong. As long as I can stand, as long as I can scream, I will do so. "Throw me at the wolves, and I will return leading the pack." I believe in my own strength. And with that strength, with my weak and feeble arms, I will build a whole new Empire, a better one. I might be tired, but oh, when I'll come back, no one will be ready for what they'll witness.

 Just think, when you feel sad and oppressed and you forget to see the beauty in life, remember that you are just working on your rebirth. It works just like a computer. You see, when you press "restart" it has to shut down, and the screen gets pitch black in order for it to start up again, and blind you with its luminosity. 

So right now, I am telling myself that when I will get out of what feels like a gloomy dimension of a terrible movie, I'll end up some place beautiful, I'll end up where I'm supposed to. 

If I can write down any piece of advice for myself so that I never forget it, it will be that: We regret the things we did not do, and not our little bits of craziness which push us to do incredibly stupid things.

Only through pain can we get better

The statement above is one of the many facts we learn as we grow into adulthood. There are many things that we are taught in school, but life-lessons are self taught. We grow from our mistakes. I did not seize or grasp the full meaning of this sentence until I suffered a little.

In middle-school you are either bullied or the bully. In my case, it was (how original) the first option. I was the new girl and I later became the annoying ugly girl of the class. So I had it all thrown at my face by some guys that could not see the impact their words had.

Only when I would break down and cry, would they stop, and eventually once in a while apologize before starting again a few hours later.

This is how I realised that it was not me they hated, but my looks. It was not me, not who I was, but what I looked like. What I appeared to be. They truly did look sorry at the idea of me hurting, they just did not care enough to stop acting the way they did. It looked like they retrieved some sort of satisfaction from my pain. I later understood that some of these jerks were going to become really good people, and that for some others it was who they are, and not changing. Being bullied pushed me to my physical but also mental limits as I did things I now regret, but it made me grow as I learnt that in life you sometimes have to be ruthless and that strength keeps you alive . I learnt that looks can get you places brains can't, and that their power should not be underestimated. That is how I got interested into body language.

Only through pain can we get better.

We have all had friends that have let us down tremendously at one point in our lives. What I got from that experience was that there is a clear line between your Friends with a capital "f" and your friends. In french, we have two different words to call our friends, depending on how important they are to us: Amis and Copains. I learnt how and in which category to put everyone I met nearly immediately. I also learnt that upgrades and downgrades are possible. To finish with, I learnt that trust comes from honesty and that there is no point in trusting someone who has lied to someone else in front of you. Disappointments and let-downs are part of life, and they should be expected, sometimes forgiven. We are humans after-all and can make errors, but repeating them doesn't make you human, just selfish.

Only through pain can we get better.

When my grandparents died, I understood how primordial it was to say the words we never say to our families. To say "I love you" or "I'm sorry". Because it's always too late. The type of pain I am talking about right now is the one which comes with regret. Regretting doing something or on the contrary, not doing anything is painful to any individual. What is even more painful are the "what if...". What if I had faced my fears for him, would he still like me? What if I hadn't said that, would they still be friends? What if instead of doing that, I did this? All of those questions and only one goal: Imagining a different turn out.

Through all the regrets my 17 years old self can experience, I understood that I had to give up on the "what ifs" and I had to stop blaming myself. This is the way it all happened, now stop whining. Be the person you wish you were, have the strength you know is hiding in you. Get up and face the world like a superhero does when everything around them is falling.

Because living in fear and regret only results in more fears and regrets.

All it does is stop yourself from enjoying life the way it should be enjoyed.

Now, only through pain DO we get better.