Thursday, December 17, 2009

13. If it's not scary, it's not for you

I heard somewhere, many years ago, that we should go for the things that make us scared. Obviously, they didn't mean date a psychopath! Only the things that you are scared of but at the same time never really leave your mind. Those are the things that will make you stronger after you've done them. Those are the things that define your limits, so when you overcome them the strength that comes from it is in discovering your life has no limits.

There is always something in my life that scares me. Some things involve other people, so all I can do is be patient and find ways to keep positive or find alternative solutions if necessary. Like the fear I have of never getting pregnant when my husband finally agrees to start a family. Then there are other small fears, about parts of my body that never worked that well, like my left eye, some day shutting down completely.

The good thing is that usually, the most overwhelming fears are the ones only we can do something about. That's why I believe they exist for a reason. My most overwhelming fear, after I finished my bachelors degree, was to never find a job in graphic & web design. I know it sounds easy to achieve, but my father educated me to be perfect in everything I did, the best and so on... so I grew up afraid of everything I had to do professionally and obsessed with knowledge. But lots of perseverance and even moving to another country, got me there, straight into a full time position with an amazing paycheck.

After a year, I discovered working in design, as commercial as it is today, not only didn't scare me anymore, but was draining me out. I kept doing the job, we bought a car that broke down, we bought another, went on vacations and yet our savings kept getting bigger and bigger (still are very healthy, I'm against credit cards or loans), until one day the economic crisis hit the company, they fired several people before discovering they had to let me go too. That was this October, and I officially left the office in November. Common sense whispered to me that I should apply to another job, doing exactly the same thing. But mentally I was stressed, irritated and feeling very old, with only 30 years of age.

Someone told me to take a couple of months off, relax, enjoy my savings, myself, my fresh married life. Doing that consciously, not applying to another job, was scary as well. What would everyone think?

The next thing was discovering what scared me the most, and that was admitting, after all that hard work, I didn't want to work in design anymore. My family still doesn't know. That's one of the joys of living in another country.

And writing came along after that, very easily, almost like it was meant to be since the beginning, the scariest thing and the thing I should be doing all along.

It feels right.
I know eventually I may want to start a new job (part-time or full-time), but I know now that I will never stop writing again, especially in English, my second language. And the funny thing is writing is scary every-single-day! And that's why I do it.


Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.
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2 comments: on "13. If it's not scary, it's not for you"

Brenda Nepomuceno said...

Once again, love your post. I know it's not the same, but it feels really good to know that someone else's as scared of writing as I am. And it feels even better to know that being afraid is not the bad thing - doing nothing about it is.

"And writing came along after that, very easily, almost like it was meant to be since the beginning, the scariest thing and the thing I should be doing all along."

You're so inspiring. Thank you, again! :)

Note to self: humanize said...

Hello Brenda,

I really believe the fear of that white page, before we start each day, is the same in all writers that take it seriously ;)

Vanessa