Pushing Through Fear: Life Doesn't Stop for Anybody

                 I wanted to start this post with a cool quote about courage but I found so many and so many good ones that I decided to use the definition of it instead. Courage is defined as "the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery." Courage is the ability to do something that frightens you, or in my opinion, the ability to do something even if it frightens you. Fear is a tricky thing, ironically, it's a scary thing. It creates these question marks in your brain and fills you with doubt and confusion, intending to stump you. To stop you in your tracks. To keep you from moving forward. To get to where you want to go, to where you need to go.

                While fear stops you, the world around you keeps moving. People keep running, the sun keeps shining, seasons change, places change, but you don't. Wearing fear around your neck like a cosy scarf keeps you from changing. Life doesn't stop for anybody, even if it stops for you. Everything keeps changing, but you'll stay the same and - as a vicious, miserable cycle - you'll only end up being more afraid, that scarf will wrap itself even more tightly around your neck and it will start being harder and harder to breathe as you allow to get closer and closer to your skin. Freeing yourself from it is as hard as being consumed by it, but a lot more worth it - a lesson I'm still trying to learn myself. When you're free from fear, you're able to walk to the ledge of the cliff and leap into the abyss of fulfilment and achievement. There's nothing holding you back.

                The journey entails being strong enough to burn the scarf down and find a way to, step by step, get closer and closer to the ledge. Every step you take comes at a different time in your life, every step is taken over a different moment, every step represents you breathing easier and your chest feeling lighter. Every step matters, even the ones you take backwards. What matters  is that you keep walking. That you don't stop - even when you are terrified. Accept that fear, accept that you see and hear it, but tell yourself you won't let it suffocate you again. Tell yourself you can do things even if you are afraid. Tell yourself that those things make you better, doing something you're afraid of makes you brave, this is not happening to you, it is happening for you - so that you can explore yourself, your limits, to know how you can be pushed, what you can overcome.

                Tell yourself to push through fear, because life doesn't stop for anybody and it shouldn't stop for you. 


The first picture was created by Gyan Yankovich for Buzzfeed. You can find the original post here.