The coward dies a 1000 deaths!

 “The coward dies a thousand deaths, the valiant, only once!”

  -Shakespeare

What all are you afraid of? I somehow find it interesting to keep questioning what all fears we have, some very rational and some highly irrational. If I look back and see what all the fears I have had in life – I was afraid of talking to girls :D, I was afraid of standing on a stage and trying to talk, I was afraid to make an eye contact and sit for an interview, I was afraid of my language and its vocabulary, its present ability, I was afraid when I learnt to drive since I was very sure that I am going to run over someone and a lot more things which can make the list much exciting. Let me quit when I am ahead ;). (Related post : Do I complain too much? )

But thing is, most of these fears were very rational when they started, most of them made a lot of sense and most of them tried to hold me back from doing something. But in reality, to be very honest, I really wanted to do those. I really wanted those experiences in my life and wanted to try and figure out a way to do it. Of course I wasn’t smart enough to understand the above quote back then, so I followed the simpler path – I tried to avoid these emotions, avoid the urge to do those things, tried to downplay them – Doesn’t this remind you of the story where the wolf cried that the grapes are sour? Well! I was doing exactly the same. There was no denying that I really wanted all those but to the outside world, I had found a way to downplay it, act cool, act as if it was very trivial and none of it actually mattered.

But truth of the matter was that it always did, I did feel bad about those but never took any action, thus successfully completing the cycle of achievement :P. But somehow somewhere along the journey, I guess I was fed up. I was fed up of giving meaningless reasons to myself, giving those insane answers not to feel something, not to enjoy those experiences. And that I guess was the Eureka moment where it felt that I should stop trying to intellectually gratify myself. It is very easy to rationalize our thoughts, make ourselves feel better cos we want to and keep ourselves away from a few things cos they make us feel better for the moment and the long term view is a little far for us to see since it does not hurt the present!

But I guess, it is ok to sometimes feel those uncomfortable moments, push ourselves a little, not cos we feel amazing about it, but to realize that it is a very small experience which is holding us back from so much. And for the bigger picture, it is a very small piece of the puzzle which makes life all the more exciting. It opens us up to far more opportunities and experiences cos we braved a few simpler ones. I guess it is the mindset which matters the most. And all those small challenges and getting over them kinda offers you a new way of life as well. A new experience doesn’t need to be scary any more, it doesn’t need to push us down anymore. It is about how we are going to deal with it, we know it is going to be a little uncomfortable at the moment but in the long run, it is a small sacrifice we can make cos there is so much more which can open up :)

Related :

How to face fear? 

Courage isn’t the absence of fear

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