Be Fearless

I've had bad things happen to me and sometimes I think...is this the end of it for me? Is my future forever changed by this incident? There's a fear of losing everything. It's during these moments that I don't sleep. I lay awake the whole night thinking, replaying, in my head, things that I don't want to remember. Getting out of bed sporadically to search for a remedy. After I exhaust every neuron in my brain, I start thinking about the "what ifs". What if I went to jail? How would I handle it? How would my family/friends react? What if I just leave and run away? Could I survive? Where would it lead me? This whirlwind of thoughts, racing in all directions, make me a wreck.

One day, I decided to pour out every drop of fear in my cup and thought about what I needed to be strong and resilient. I finally met this ineffable stage of invincibility and some inexplicable source of inner strength overcame me. I can't even really describe it, exactly. It didn't feel like I could take on any challenge in the world. It felt like I needed to face every challenge knowing that the results would change me as a person and I needed to embrace that change. After sifting through hundreds of hypothetical outcomes to my situation, I wasn't sure if I just gave up trying to make certainty out of uncertainty or if I wanted to deliberately stop being afraid. I realized that no matter what happened, I would continue living my life given the cards that I was dealt. I couldn't change my hand, but I could continue playing the game to the best of my ability. I was still scared shitless about going through with life, but I didn't have any consternation by it. There is value in every possible outcome and I was genuinely curious about it.

What does success mean to you?

I watched the US Olympic trials today. One of the races got me up in tears. It wasn't an inspirational triumph; it was an inspirational failure. I watched Alysia Montano, female 800m Sprint runner, trip and fall in the last 150m of the race. Full of emotion, she got up and fell back down 3-4 times before dragging her spiritless body to the finish line. I felt my eyes well up, knowing she put in years of blood/sweat/tears into a sport where misfortune decided her fate and not whether she trained hard enough. I can't match her state of mind, but I could share her pain in a parallel example.

Ingrained in a culture that says you can fulfill your dreams if you set your heart on it, and when you wholeheartedly do so but don't get the expected outcome, you feel lost. Frustrated with the world, asking God why the pieces didn't fall into place. So many people can tell you what success means to them. The media can tell you what it looks like. But, perhaps what we need is to redefine what success means to ourselves. We have to remind ourselves that we are the sum of our different parts and not just one thing. No one is all-athlete or all-artist or all-politician nor do we need to burden success on one aspect of ourselves. I don't pity Montano for falling. Of course, I rooted for her to win, but she won me over when I saw her carrying her daughter with her husband standing by her side. Montano had a beautiful family. Is being a good Mother not also a medal of success? We cannot solely measure ourselves by the metrics set by the society, because it requires conformity to an unrealistic perfection. Rather, we need to measure ourselves by how much love we have for ourselves and how much positive impact we have on those around us.