My Fear When I Was Young

When I was young, I was afraid of the dark, so scared “ojuju” would pop out of the dark and carry me away. Sometimes, i could have sworn that i saw an image forming in the darkness. Often my mum had to leave the lights on till I finally fell asleep. I remember the first time I was forced to sleep in the dark, I was about 8 years old then, every sound got me on the edge, I barely got a wink till morning but then the following night it got a little easier, on and on until I got used to it and finally overcame that fear.

Now when I look back, it is quite funny because I know better now, no “ojuju” in the dark, in fact those images I thought I saw, were all in my head, a creation of my fear. So when my first son said, “daddy, I can’t sleep in the dark”, I just told him “son, go and sleep nothing is going to hurt you”. Gradually, he too is overcoming this fear because some how he trusts dad, just as I learned to trust my mum.

Fear is something we out grow and then grow back into. I am sure we can all relate to this story while growing up but do you know as adults we still suffer same fears? Fear of what lies in the (unknown or new territory) dark . We might have outgrown the fear of darkness, so to say, but some how we still suffer other fears that are just in our head. People are afraid of so many things that you begin to wonder how much fear is depriving the world. You hear statements like what if I try and I fail, what if I succeed and I can’t cope with fame, what if I don’t fit in, what if I can’t learn, what if I don’t find the right partner, what if I find the right partner but I am not right for him/her, what if my plans don’t work, what if my plan works but people don’t like it… Sadly, when we outgrow one fear we somehow find a way of growing into another one.

Most of us have very beauty dreams, vivid and clear paths and line of actions but we never do anything about them. We don’t lift a finger to fulfill these dreams because we are scared of failing. We are scared of what all the negative statistics have to say, we make up more reasons in our head why it won’t work out than even the statistics suggest. We create our own “ojuju” that stops us from leaving our supposed comfort zones where all the lights are on just to give us temporary relief. The image of failure seems so conspicuous, it stops us from venturing into our dreams and aspirations.

Like the darkness we so much feared when we were young, these fears are unreal, just something in our head that we need to get rid of by taking actions. Don’t wait till you are all grown up and then you realize what you could have become. Don’t fill your old age with regrets and thoughts of what could have been. Overcome your fears by taking actions. Whatever seems unachievable, take the first step by attempting it, you can’t know if it is possible if you don’t give it a try. Like you now tell your younger ones, “stop being afraid there is nothing in the dark”, I am telling you too, ” stop being afraid, there is nothing to be scared of in following your dreams”. You cannot fail, you cannot lose, you cannot regret it because you can do it and there is nothing stopping you.