Dec 2014 - I started learning how to drive a car. Within a couple of days I got the hang of it and was able to drive on minimal traffic roads. While I was still gaining confidence to drive on all types of routes, an incident happened.
My Dad was also learning along with me. One day, when he was trying to get the car outside of the parking, he ended up hitting another car. It was a massive hit, the other car got damaged from the back. I saw all of this. Even though I wasn’t responsible for anything that happened but that incident ended up leaving some impact on me. Every time I used to see my dad taking out the car out of the parking, I used to think that he will hit again. I was so shaken by that one incident that for next 7 years I didn’t even touch the car. Yeah, 7 long years. I don’t know what was it, but somewhere my confidence was totally gone. Everytime I used to think about driving again, a voice inside me would say - “agar papa se gaadi thuk gayi, fir tu to thok hi dega” and slowly I became a captive of that fear.
It’s pretty normal to hit once or twice when one is learning to drive and that’s how you learn anything - you make mistakes and you learn. But deep down somewhere this fear had totally overpowered me. That too when I wasn’t even driving.
Nov 2021 - In a totally different context, I did something which I had never done before. What I exactly I did? Well that’s a story for another day. In brief- I did something to kill a fear which has been disturbing me for more than 10 years. Once I did that, I felt some sort of energy and I wanted to channelise it. Next thing that I remember - I picked up the car keys and went for a short drive. And that was it, I had finally ended up the fear which had been haunting me for 7 years.
Fast forward to Jun 2023 - It’s been 1.5 years and I have been driving almost everyday, around some 200km each week. I’ve had just hit one car throughout this time that it wasn’t anything major. Last weekend I drove 700km+ in less than 2 days, including some risky mountain routes.
See there’s nothing to flaunt about here. I didn’t do anything extraordinary or achieved anything. The point of telling all this is to share a very simple learning -Your fear will do everything it can do to make sure that you don’t win. The more you feel afraid of it, the more it will scare you. Getting over it will seem like a very humungous task. You will feel that it’s impossible. But all of this will be there till the time you take that one step. One step to stand up and fight the fear. The moment you take that step and act against it, it will vanish like it was never there. You will feel a whole new type of energy. An energy that will transform you into something better and there’s no other feeling that can match those emotions. So rather than being afraid of your fears, just act against them.
Remember the keyword - “act”. If you don’t act then everything will remain intact.