The Paradox of Fear

Sometimes in the moments before typing words, even with a topic in mind, my fingers freeze and hesitate with fear. The doubts sweep over to question my right to write about the subject, predicting the reader’s reaction to my writing, How, in a slew of words, I may be judged unfit, utterly mediocre.

Every writer, or for that matter, every person who goes for his dreams is filled with fear. They are eternally with us, the second guessing, how we convince ourselves to stop because it will not do us any good, that all those efforts will be wasted.

I say we will all have these nights when the questions, the blackness will come. There will be more nights when I’d look at the white screen and cry in desperation, “Why can’t I write better?”. “Why can’t I be better?”

Fear and Failure are the sheeps in wolve’s clothing. They are good omens dressed in ugly clothes. The guards to the gates of freedom and self-fulfillment. They are sieves that enable only the brave, the determined to succeed. To my mind, they are the great equalizers. Because beyond talent and natural gifts, it it bravery, a total belief in one’s dreams that ultimately changes the outcome of our endeavors.

I half-remember a cliche I’ve come across a long time ago, I am sure you’ve read it too. It’s about suffering. How we cannot escape suffering, but how we have the choice what to suffer for. I will gladly suffer for my dreams.

As Maya Angelou so beautifully puts it: Not everything you do is going to be a masterpiece, but you get out there and you try and sometimes it really happens. The other times you're just strengthening your soul.