Fear nothing.

Mountain Dew has asked to write about the risks I have taken to overcome my fear and claim victory. I could write about overcoming physical fears such as the time when I went for a monsoon trek to Nakhind and found myself on a long, slippery precipice with nothing to hold on to and no option but to advance ahead. My victory would have looked like something like this:


Or I could write about the far more difficult and insidious fears that take hold of us inside our minds and keep us from realising our full potential. Once, I was afraid of talking to people I didn't know. I was afraid of making friends and opening up. I was afraid of making presentations to large audiences. My hands would shiver and my voice would come out like a squeak. I'm sure this sounds familiar to quite a few of you. We've all been prisoners of fears that refused to relinquish their hold on us. But that's the thing - it's always within our power to pry off the claws of even the most persistent fears and break free from them. It may be difficult and it may take time but it's never impossible. Because we are bigger than any of our fears.

I spent my two years at junior college feeding my fears and believing that I would never be free of them. But when I entered graduation and opted for the vibrant course of bachelors in mass media, I decided that enough was enough. I forced myself to talk to every single person in class. I pushed myself to participate in every event I came across. I became part of committees and activities and I never wasted a single moment doing nothing of value. Soon, I found to my surprise that people actually liked me. And they weren't as scary as I had imagined. They weren't demons waiting to devour me, which is what a lot of shy, timid people feel. The chronic fear of approaching strangers and having conversations with them became a thing of the past as I began experimenting with journalism. I began to travel to different places on my own and thus began my journey of self-discovery. I rose above my fears and I realised how silly it had been, to allow myself to be enslaved by mere figments of my imagination. Fears are nothing but that. They feed on our misconceptions and memories of unfortunate events and start creating a pseudo-reality that is far from the truth.

If you're afraid of something, you'll likely be telling yourself that everyday. Your thoughts will resonate the supposed reasons for your fear and their repetition will lull you into unquestioning belief. But all you have to do is arrest their useless whispers and take action to prove them wrong. Get out of the realm of self-defeating thoughts and go do that very thing that scares you most. In the Mountain Dew video, Arya does not climb the mountain in one second. Neither does he accomplish his goal without several challenges along the way. But when you treat every journey from fear to victory as a game that is enjoyable and riddled with exhilaration, the challenges turn into doable milestones rather than insurmountable obstacles. All the great masters have taught us about overcoming fears but it is of course easier said than done. That first step - it'll take everything out of you. But it'll be worth it. So worth it.

'I think fearless is having fears but jumping anyway'. - Taylor Swift

For more on rising above your fears, visit https://www.facebook.com/mountaindewindia.

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This post has been written as a part of the 'Rise above fear!' initiative by Mountain Dew India and Indiblogger.

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