Begin With A Step
Begin With A Step
Begin With A Step
It is said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a step”. It is not a matter of how
big or small you are to venture into something big, but what you do with what you have.
“Fear” is the element that intimidates our success. We are often afraid of people’s words
concerning the steps we are about to take in life. Never allow someone’s irresponsible
comments stop you. Usually they cannot see the expanse of your vision and potential.
When they say, “it can’t be done”, make sure they watch you doing it. Use the words
thrown at you as your stepping stones on your way up rather than stumbling rocks
blocking you to reach your goal.
James F. Bymes said, “Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity.
They seem to be more afraid of life than death.” All the insecurities, jealousy and
loneliness is essentially because of fear. Not being able to look forward to opportunities
in life and emphasizing more on the limitations and boundaries is also rooted within our
fears.
Faces of fear
In its extremes, fear in our personal lives causes anxiety and distress. This prison of fear
is not just jail time, it comes with a death sentence. Their lives may be totally controlled
by fear, making life totally unenjoyable and struggling even with most common and
routine tasks of daily life. Fortunately, this is not the most common manifestation of fear.
The far more destructive form of fear is one that we have come to accept because it is so
common.
“The tide is high it may sink or swim but my only rival lies within”
Brilliant and bright ideas come to many beautiful minds and if those are actually put in
work then something very good and nurturing can come out of it. Is most cases what
happens is that we get worried about the results and even before the result the process.
The process of transforming an idea, a thought into a reality. This is the fear of facing the
adversities. Eventually those thoughts and ideas we once had are now weakening, not
because they lack something but because we are not as brave as we were when we had the
idea, now we are sinking and instead of trying to cross the river. We are sinking because
it is not that we don’t know how to swim across the river but because we are not trying to
swim at all because we are taken aback and can’t come through. Essentially it is
mountain inside the head that we need to conquer before we climb the Everest.
Fear paralyzes you if you do not deal with it. It will absolutely drag you away from your
desires. Recognize it. Conquer it.
Don’t be afraid
I’m sure you have had an experience in the past when you really feared something. After
doing it how did you feel? Silly? Stupid? The feeling is often one of “that wasn’t so hard
after all. I don’t know what I was afraid of.” Trying to fight fear is like trying to fight the
dark. You can’t do it.
The way to get rid of darkness is to bring in the light. The way to get rid of your fears is to
conquer them. “Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and
surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear” Dale Carnegie
Can someone who is barely able to utter two sentences together in public lead a freedom
movement? The answer is yes, and the case in point is Mahatma Gandhi.
During his student life, he suffered from frequent panic attacks. He had a particularly
agonizing experience during a speech he was asked to give to a vegetarian community in
London. After reading one line from the message he had prepared, he could no longer
speak and asked someone else to read the rest of the speech for him.
“My vision became blurred and I trembled, though the speech hardly covered
a sheet of foolscap,” he recalled.
For years, the “the awful strain of public speaking” became a burden so great for Gandhi
that he even avoided speaking at friendly get-togethers and dinner parties.
Later in life, as a lawyer, the fear of crowds continued to haunt him. During his first case
before a judge, he panicked and left the courtroom, feeling humiliated after not being
able to think of any question to ask. He painfully recalled, “My head was reeling and I felt
as though the whole court was doing likewise.”
What happened, then, to turn a fainthearted speaker into the fearless leader of a
revolution?
Gandhi found a cause that inflamed a passion so great in him that it overrode his
anxieties and fears. His desire to see a free India moved him to stand up for what he
believed in. He noted that even his “hesitancy in speech” later became an advantage as it
taught him to pack meaning into short but pithy statements.
“Be stubborn…because you have considered the maximum number of people who will
benefit and wish to serve them by solidly banging the drum for what you know to be
true,” he wrote.
There is only thing you should fear and that is arrogance. That should not be a fear of
terror, but of reverence. “For the Earth hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power,
and of love, and of a sound mind.” Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.
“If your mind can accept that something is achievable, it will find a way to attain that
thing.”
“Your vision is limited only by you. The problem is that you don’t know what you should
be. It’s not your fault, really: your education has messed you up. It has taken your
boundless potential and shrunk it and shaped it into a narrow title.”
Go ahead and start that business you want to start. Go ahead and study what you really
want to study. Go ahead and become a musician, poet, artist, fashion designer or
whatever else you want to do. Sure you might fail, but you might succeed too. Take the
risk today and conquer your fears. Do you want to look back years from now and think I
could have, I might have, and I should have. That is a sad way to live your
life. SUCCESS IS YOURS!