Something about that nagging voice, Fear.

FEAR

Fear is something I am pretty sure we are all familiar with. At one point or another we must have felt its presence within us. That nagging voice that refuses to let go. Ever confident; it has no reason to doubt itself anyway. Whichever way you want to tackle it, there is a comeback waiting, ready to shake the very roots of your belief. Consistent, relentless, and patient. Sometimes I admire fear, that may be weird, but I cannot ignore the amount of power fear has and once you give in to it, it can literally consume you.

Every day comes with its own challenges, and no matter how much I plan, nothing is set in concrete. Life happens and that is fine, or more truthfully, I’m learning to be fine with how life works because there is no other choice. Whether I act or not, my fears will be there, and life will go on. Do I keep taking conscious actions that affect my life or do I just lay back and let life happen to me? Do I keep saying, “What will be will be”, in all matters relating to my life or do I choose to do something no matter how small about it? I don’t have the right answers to these questions. Some days I’m literally paralyzed by fear that I do absolutely nothing and let time just go by. At other times I’m pumped up, ready to battle with whatever fear has for me for the day.

There is no fixed manual to going through life. For example, this article, for days I told myself I had writer’s block, there was no inspiration to write, that I couldn’t find the words or even put them together (and a series of other excuses). I knew deep within that I was afraid, and I was letting my fears win. Why? Because living in the fear was easy, I didn’t have to push myself to compose words, to edit, to show myself to the world. It was easy to simply dwell in my unreasonable excuses. A naïve part of me thought that after 1 week of consistent writing (birthday week), it would be easy for me to keep writing, pretty sure my fears had a good laugh about that😒. I did find out that it is much harder because I have found my path so definitely it can’t just be happily ever after from then. Life is really something else. Everything must not be war nahh. I’M NOT A GIRL OF WAR.😂

It is easy to forget all the wonderful things we are capable of once fear starts creeping in. I feel like no matter how sure of myself I am, almost every activity I engage in is tainted by fear. There will always be something to be afraid of, the doubts, will be there but irrespective of the power fear wields it has absolutely no power over me. It can only be in control of my decisions if I let go and give up control of my consciousness. I see my mind like a car (an exotic one of course), my essence is the driver, emotions are passengers and I decide who will be in the passenger seat at any point in time.

Life in its entirety is an embodiment of a variety of characteristics. So incredibly unpredictable, take for instance 2020. The long-awaited year, “Vision 2020”, the year Nigeria was supposed to have turned around but the unexpected happened and the entire world was brought to a halt, a pandemic in the 21^st century. Spreading justified fear in the hearts of many and resulting in deaths of many as well but one thing I have found to be consistent is, “Just keep moving consciously”, no matter how small. And when the negativity comes, feel it for a while,  learn from it, let it remind you of the reasons you have to keep moving, then discard it and move, at least that’s how I handle mine most times.

So, tell me, how do you handle your fears?