Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear..” Mark Twain
I did not know the truth of this sentence for a long time. Since the days of childhood, I feared failure. That time it was flunking the final exam and remaining in the same class. Later it was being rejected by the publishers. But there remained the big, scary F word.
As I grew up, along with me grew the fear of failure. This fear kept me away from doing a lot of things. I was scared to admit that I wanted to be a writer. I was also scared to show anyone my writings. There was a sense of comfort in keeping the writings locked inside the drawers. I was comfortable. Showing my work to the world means enduring criticism, rejection yet. I was not up for that.
For a long time I adhered to this comfort zone. When I began trying my hands on creative writing, I stayed within the threshold of this region. Crossing this meant to me crossing the line of fire. I rather be at ease all the time.
This habit had cost me a lot. Whenever I walked into a block while writing a story, I stopped. Instead of trying to find a way to get past the adversity, I gave up writing it altogether. I kept saying that real writers never experienced this kind of blocks. The fact I faced this problem was the evidence that I was not a writer. Writing being a hobby was fine but taking this as a profession? No ways……..come on guys get real.
I failed to finish numerous stories which I would have loved to read because I was scared to make mistake. I wrote each line with the nagging feeling in my heart that no one would read this, publishers would reject this because this was not good enough.
All my life I feared failure. In the end this fear almost possessed me and got me down to the dust. What you fear, you become.
I had to force myself to deal with this. Kicking the ass of the fear was not easy but I had to.
Now, I write because this gives me pleasure. I know that even if no one reads what I am writing, at least my soul will derive solace from the fact that I have created this. I make mistakes and bindas do it. Being able to learn from the mistakes is the best thing that had ever happened to me. Believing in my ability to create has done wonders to my energy.
Today, I am a professional writer. I earn my living writing for websites. Am I proud of the fact? You are damn right I am. But this would not have happened had I not fucked the fear and made myself go with flow.
Don’t I fear now? I do fear. Only I have turned that into a driving force. Now I keep improving myself everyday because I am scared. I learn because I am frightened. I read like I am gonna die tomorrow. I live like life will end tomorrow. I write like this is the only chance I have to make it.
You see, earlier I used to fear blogging. I asked myself all the time, would anyone read this? Today, I have just expressed my feeling at a go. Who reads this does not really count as long as I can go on writing.
“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain..” Mark Twain
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