It was a Sunday, I was relaxing on a bench by the pool side trying to figure out a theme for my story. With my eyes closed and mind open for thoughts, I could hear kids splashing water in the pool and their parents shouting at them not to stop paddling their feet. Though it was noisy, I dint feel disturbed with kids enjoying their first moments in the pool. But suddenly, someone shouted, “Don’t push me, I am scared”. I opened my eyes, the Sun beamed into my eyes, making it hard to see who it was. I narrowed my eyes and held my hand towards the sky blocking the sun. He’s about 12 — 13 years old. He shouted repeatedly,“Don’t push me, I am scared”. A group, maybe his friends tried to push him into the water, the boy resisted but the group persisted. They pushed him.
The next second, the boy was in the water, he’s in no danger as it’s the shallower side of the pool. If he stands upright, his head will be out of the water, but he struggled to stand on his feet. The moment he fell into the water, he sank to the bottom but never stopped splashing his hands, may be instincts. As he craved for breath, he tried to stick his head out of the water, he couldn't. He splashed hard. By now, he would have consumed so much water, breathed it into his lungs making it even harder to get out. His fear is drowning him more than the depth of the water. Then, the one who pushed him got hold of his hand and dragged him to the edge of the pool. Water still running over his face, scared, confused and angry, the boy stood on his feet and finally breathed air.
I just watched.
About 15 years back, a similar group tied one end of a rope around my waist and the other end to a tree. They said, “Jump”. I looked at the water, I was scared. It’s not a lavish looking swimming pool of 5 feet depth, it’s a round murky well in my village that would easily be more than 60 feet in depth and about 15 feet in diameter. No one knows the meaning of a life guard, all that we know is, if someone drowns and gets to the bottom of the well, the self-proclaimed greatest swimmer of the village(with us that day) will get us out of the water. I still was scared even having the greatest swimmer by my side. I told I can’t but then they pushed me. I started sinking, it was dark and cold. Suddenly the rope tightened, someone held my hair, pulled my head out of the water. It was the best breath of my life. Scared like the boy in the pool but one greatest thing happened to me that day. Since then, I am not scared of water anymore. That day, my fear drowned and died.
Most of us would have experienced such fear in our lives. We are scared of something or the other. Scared to get into the water? scared of public speaking? scared to change our line of work and try a new opportunity? scared to express ourselves? scared to leave our comfort zone and pursue our passion? and many other things that we alone know. Unfortunately, that fear keeps most of us in its grip and robs the moments that could become the greatest moments of our life. It keeps us away for realizing our potential. It will make us end up with a mediocre life while we are capable of living a magnificent one. It happened with me, I was scared of trying new things, learning new technologies. I loved to stay in my comfort zone, I loved to play it safe, I loved to avoid failure, until I found a solution for fear. What is it?
Act. Act on your fear and it will disappear forever. If you are scared to get into the water, getting into the water is the only way. If you are scared to take risks, then taking risks is the only way. Scared to talk to a girl you like? Go and say hi. There’s no other way what so ever. The magic here is, once you act against your fear, you will be out of its grip, free to do what you intend to do. It’s a funny thing, with the first step towards overcoming it, it diminishes by half and then with the second step, it almost disappears. Try it.
But there’s a problem here. We cannot lose our fear until we act against it but then the very same fear stops us from acting against it. A chicken and egg problem. A loop, a vicious loop that keeps us with it until we force ourselves to break it or we die with it. Then, how do we break it?
As the saying goes, “How do you eat an elephant?, one bite at a time”, take one step at a time. Force yourself into action. Put yourself in uncomfortable situation that will force you to act. When I talk about making ourselves uncomfortable, I remember a story,
There’s a king who went to war with a kingdom that’s far away from his. He ordered his army to set sail. They reached the enemy land after a month of dangerous journey by sea. As they landed on the enemy territory, one of the commander approached the king and said,
“Majesty, I am afraid that we will be outnumbered”
The king looked at the commander and ordered him, “Burn all our boats”
The commander was shocked and said, “My king, there’s no way we can reach our land without our boats”
“Yes, there is one way”, said the King.
The commander remained silent.
The king looked at his army and then the commander and said,
“We have no way to go back even if we are scared. There’s only one way. Win the war, we can go home”
The commander burned all the boats. The army’s uncomfortable, but there’s no way back. Fear had no route to escape, it was made to fight. The small army of the king won the war.”
What a way to overcome fear!! I don’t ask you to put yourself in dying situations but giving fear no way to escape is the best way to fight it. If you are scared of public speaking, put it on Facebook that you would speak and upload the pictures. If you are scared to learn a new technology, advertise that you already know that technology. We are all slaves to our fears only till the first step but after that, we are masters of it. As we try to take our first step, fear tells us many things from inside,
“You cannot do this”, “There’s no need for you to do this”, “What’s wrong if you don’t do this in your life?” Once we think of overcoming it, then fear in its pursuit to survive, scares us even more saying, “You will fail”, “People will laugh at you”, “There’s no need for this”
Stop over analyzing your fears and act on them, they will be gone once and for all in your life. After all, who likes to die without overcoming their fears in their entire lifetime? Many actually. Nobody cares to see what’s on the other side of their fears. We live on the comfortable side of life but often opportunity, success and greatness lies on the other side of our fears. We are happy to live without challenging our limits, without knowing how far we can go and without learning our true capability. That’s not living, That’s mere existence.
“Life without challenging its own limits is just a mere existence”
Don’t just exist, go beyond your fears. No matter how tiny steps you take, step towards your fears, you will enjoy the adrenaline. You will see new opportunities coming your way, you will set an example for your children, you will have a more fulfilled life, you will build confidence, you will be more positive, you will be knocking at the doors of success and greatness and when we finally end up on our death bed, we say to ourselves, “I have lived my life”. We smile within remembering our initial steps towards our fears. We will be proud of ourselves to look back and know how far we have gone from the limits that once we thought we would die with. Keep in mind, if an eagle stays in its nest fearing the flight, it lives and dies like a hen, never knowing that it can fly high.
“ Limits, like fear, is often an illusion — Michael Jordan ”
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