That What You Fear The Most?

Last week I completed a class I never intended on taking. In fact, I have been running from that whole sector of the academic world for half my life. I even transferred to obscure colleges to circumvent certain requirements. I am not proud. I felt guilty, of course, but I figured I would never need it and I was smart enough in other areas to move forward with my life.

I was wrong of course. It turns out one of these classes were a non-negotiable requirement for the graduate program which would afford me the career I have wanted to get into since high school.

All I had to do was enroll and pass with a "C" or higher and I was golden. Sounds easy enough, right? Maybe for you. For me it was my own personal road to psychological Mordor. It was that which I was most reluctant to face. It was something stupid but over the years it had grown large and frightening in my mind. Sounds kindof funny. It was a class, not a warzone. So I did something new. Instead of not trying to get into that program or getting around it somehow I enrolled in the class and then:

I asked for help.

Then universe did that thing where it conspires to make it happen because you have been humble enough to ask. A tutor of great patience and experience was willing to help me. He told me to stop whining about my early-childhood issues with this particular subject and get back to the matter at hand. He was in the ring after every fight (test) offering me water (coffee) and reminding me to keep light on my feet (did you do your homework?).

Why is this story important to you? In my view it is because I could have saved myself literally half a lifetime of stress if I had gotten to this class sooner. The amount of psychological space in my brain dedicated to perseverating in depressed moments about what a dork I was for not implicitly knowing this stuff is absurd. I don't know where I got the idea you had to know something before you studied it but that was a bunch of crap.

I get wrapped up in fear sometimes. I get so tied up sometimes that I can't make a choice of my own free will and the universe has to blow me off the fence, to one side or another. When I am on the ground it doesn't matter what side I am on, just that I am no longer gripping the fencepost with wide fearful eyes. I may not even know it yet, but the world has become my oyster (in a non-manifest destiny, sustainable kind of way).

I am probably not the only one who has some secret they have been running from. I suspect there are more of us out there. I not gonna say everything got hunky dory all of a sudden there is a sense of relief because I worked my way through the woods and found out it wasn't Mordor after all. It was just a Statistics class.

So go do what you're afraid of already. We don't have much time.