Being In Time: Fearless Of My Future
Do you ever fear what you know?
What we fear is uncertainty over things outside of us.
Will they like me?
Do they think I am good enough?
Will I be accepted?
Can I really do this?
We fear the answers to questions that we think we do not have the authority to answer on our own. It appears safer to just stay in a place that we know and are sure of. If you’ve been doing arithmetic comfortably for some time and the time for trigonometry comes, you may feel scared. Wow, trig, will I be able to do it? Can I really understand it? Is my brain capable of handling the problems? We fear this future with a new maths topic because it is unknown. Some people stay in this fear until it takes up so much space in their minds that they no longer have any more room to learn it. They worry about it constantly and think about how impossible it is to do this trig. They are afraid. They are paralysed.
Some people don’t imagine that they are unable. They imagine that they are able. They dream about all the trig sums they will do and imagine getting the prize for best scores in the trig test. They are not afraid they will not be able to do it; they are certain that they will. And so, they too get swept up in their imagination. They are so confident of themselves that they forget to do any learning.
Some people don’t know whether they will be able to do trig or not, because nobody knows the future. However, what they do know, is what they can do right now, and the fact that what they can do right now, is learn. They don’t worry about whether they will master it, that’s in the future and an irrelevant distraction from the current time. They only focus on learning a bit every day. There is nothing to fear from what is in front of you. There is everything to fear about what is ahead.
To put it differently, you can’t fear the present, because you control it through your choices of what to think, say and do. You can fear the future, because it does not yet exist and like the boogey monster that does not exist but is firmly placed in a child’s mind, it is scary.
So why waste our time on imagined things?
Why not focus on moving in the direction of that which we desire, irrespective of what we fear.
Why not focus on mastering what we can control? - Ourselves in this present moment
Why not abandon the “what -ifs” and focus on what is?
These are questions we have to ask ourselves- seriously and consistently- because we always forget. We forget that we create our future. This is because of our attachment to time and the expectations we have set around it. In effect, we go beyond our jurisdiction. Ours is to think, speak and do everything towards achieving our desires, it is not our business when those desires manifest, and, beyond the part we individually have to play, how they manifest. Because we can only be responsible for ourselves. We are part of a whole universe of people and things, each making its own decisions and moving along its own path, on which we may impact through our own actions, but over which we have no control. And because of this, things shift and adjust to happen to us when they are meant to happen, because they are meant to happen. It does not mean we have no control over our lives. It just means that trying to control the timeline over which things manifest or to control the way that they do manifest, is a useless and sometimes futile exercise.
When I was younger, I really wanted to get into Loyola Jesuit College. They took only 100 people a year, and in my head that was where all the smartest people went. So that is where I wanted to go. I studied really hard. I remember a particular afternoon where all my cousins were playing and I was doing past question papers, which my older cousin would then come to grade and explain to me. At the end of the day, I didn’t get in and I was distraught. But, for whatever reason, it was not the right time for me to be in the most selective school at the time or perhaps it was not the right school for me at all. At the end of the day, and after consistently working hard, eight years later, I started at Princeton University.
The point that I am trying to establish, is that it is our duty is to work towards what we desire, irrespective of what we fear, and without paying any attention to the timeline at which it manifests. I wanted a great education. I thought I would get it in one place, but I got it in another. That being said, there is no way I would have gotten into Princeton if I just gave up on everything and lost my drive to get the educational experience that I wanted for myself.
It is the same unknown that we fear, that works out for us, if we don’t let fear paralyse us. I cannot remember if I already shared this, but I once read a Medium article about this guy who didn’t get an internship at Apple, but went ahead to redesign the Apple Music interface anyway. He put in the effort, analysed it very thoroughly and provided good solutions to the problems he had highlighted. He didn’t let the fear of “what if I am not good enough?”, which often comes with rejection, stop him. He just went ahead to do what he intended to do anyway. He hadn’t just been rejected by Apple, he had been rejected by the design school he wanted to attend and all the internships to which he had applied. But then, people read his article, in which he just went ahead to display his talent, and the response was phenomenal.
There is no way he could have predicted that response. The only thing he could have done was what he did - move ahead anyway, irrespective of what people do or how long it is taking.
I remember a few years ago, thinking my younger sister was so ridiculous for joining the track team in University. This girl had never really done a day of sport in her life. I think perhaps she was on the D team for girls’ netball for a bit. Nonetheless, I thought she was crazy. I was doing the fearing for her. You have never run before, how can you join the track team? You are so ridiculous. But for whatever reason, this girl was determined. She woke up every single morning and she showed up. Of course, she was out of breath. Of course, she felt like dying. Of course, she was the slowest in the team, but she stuck to it, became disciplined, and got fit. She didn’t think about what she couldn’t control -her past: the fact that she’d never run track or been any form of an athlete, and her future: the possibility of being a terrible runner-. All those things were irrelevant in the face of what she did know - that she could wake up, every single morning and show up.
Fear does not exist in your getting up and taking the step forward. It exists in your worry about what will happen if you do take the step forward. We don’t know what will happen. We can’t control what will happen, until it happens.
SO TAKE THE STEP FORWARD ANYWAY!
This week, I urge you to use my sister as your inspiration. Start your “track team” journey, be fearless of how you might do or how ridiculous you might look.
And just do it !
MANTRA FOR THE WEEK:
“I KNOW WHAT I CAN DO RIGHT NOW, SO I AM GOING TO DO IT.”
Love,
O.F.P.