Fear

We all know fear. The feeling that creeps up on you when you expect it the least. When you are faced with a challenge - a challenge that you might have looked forward to, a challenge you need to push you toward the goal you always wanted to reach. And then, just when you think:  I can achieve this, fear gives you a full-on punch in the stomach.

You stand breathless, devastated by the effects this one emotion can have on your morale. In the face of fear, all the best intentions melt away.

Does fear accompany us from birth, or is it part of learned behaviour? For a long time I believed that we are born into a world of fear and that it inevitably became part of us, whether we chose it or not.
That was until I watched Annabeth drawing.
She is four years old and recently when we took the Gautrain to Sandton for breakfast we asked her to draw a picture of her experience.
We were amazed. She took the crayon and without a moment's hesitation she fired away at the drawing. She did not plan, she did not think about it. The positioning of the train, the relationship of the train to the rest of the objects in the picture - she did not plan any of it.
Living from within the passion inside of her there was no place for any fear to root itself into her drawing experience. She was not scared to pour her emotions of joy and pleasure into the picture. It was almost as if the joy and passion that flowed through her displaced all the fear that could possibly make its way into the drawing.

I compare this to my own drawing experiences. Before each drawing I sit and contemplate. I plan, I measure, I compare. I can't just start and draw. But why? Why can't I just start?
There are so many past experiences that influence our future. We live through disappointments, we push ourselves towards unrealistic heights through comparison to other people. All these experiences blend together and it stirs within us the bitter taste of fear.
Suddenly we can not just embrace every moment, we cannot go to the drawing board and trust that the picture will flow through our true emotions and passions of life.

This is heartbreaking. That we loose our joy of life to the darkness that fear brings. It is our fear of failure, our lack of trust in who we are that inhibits our true experience of life.

We need to draw our lives without the fear of how our picture will look to those around us.
If we live fearlessly we will start to see life as it truly is. Take the step, take the crayon in your hand and draw, it is your picture...