Wednesday, April 27, 2011

On fear, bravery, and friendship

Everyone has their fears. Right now, I'm afraid of getting one of my wisdom teeth pulled next week. Stuff like that is pretty simple. But let's look at some other things. I'm afraid loosing sight of where I need to be, I'm afraid of saying something stupid to a friend, and so losing them. On the inside, I'm afraid of a lot of things.

Fear, while never really good, can basically be classified as a normal part of life. But, if I may quote "Devastation and Reform" by Relient K, "Fear can drive stick, and it's taking me down this road, a road down which I swore I'd never go." In the past, I let fear become a big part of my life. The big problem was that it wasn't your everyday fear of the small things, it was fear that everyone would see how messed up my life was. I had gone through a good amount up to that point, but I had never really had a friend I trusted enough to talk to about it. I was always afraid to show my fear, because I felt that everyone would just laugh at it.

So I entered the masquerade. I became what I wanted people to see, a person who had it all together. And I use the word became extremely lightly; what I really should say is I pretended. But inside, the fear slowly ate away at me. This is where the bravery and friendship parts of this post come in.

I started talking more and more to a few people from my school. At that point it felt like I just couldn't take it anymore.

If there is one thing I've learned in life, it's that bravery isn't a lack of fear, but rather, bravery is doing things in spite of your fear. From that definition comes what has become one of my favorite phrases: "life is about learning to jump off cliffs, knowing there will be hands there to catch you; you're not going to get anywhere walking to the edge and looking down." Yes, I was scared to tell them about my life. After all, what was going to stop them from laughing at me after that? But I took a chance, I jumped off a cliff, and got caught. I wouldn't be where I am today if they hadn't taken the time to listen.

Life is full of fear. Some of our fears are big others are small, but part of life is learning to overcome our fears. Sometimes a good friendship is all we need to overcome it. I know that I owe my friends a lot.

One of the worst things you can do is pretend like everything is ok. That's where the term fictional reality came from. My definition is the lie that we lead people to believe is true. It's the mask we use to cover who we are. Fear can take you to places you'll wish you'd never seen, and sometimes the best thing you can do is talk to someone about it.

Fear is a normal part of life. Every day we go through a thousand fears - fear of failing the test, fear of losing what you care about the most, fear of being rejected.
Life is about learning to jump off the cliff, to realize that fear will always be there, but in the end, it holds no power over you.

"Scream, when the pressure breaks me, when it's to hard to say, when I feel like I'm at the end of my rope one more time."
Thousand Foot Krutch