“I’ve learned that fear limits you and your vision. It serves as blinders to what may be just a few steps down the road for you. The journey is valuable, but believing in your talents, your abilities, and your self- worth can empower you to walk down an even brighter path. Transforming fear into freedom- how great is that?” – Soledad O’Brien

It is 9p.m. and I am sitting at my kitchen table listening to soft music in the background, I reach for my hot mug which is shaped like a cactus and take a quick sip of my peppermint tea. I blink in the dim lighting, trying to readjust my eyes from the blinding computer screen. I can hear my cats playing in the next room and the Netflix show my mom has on. The room lights up again when I get an Instagram notifying me that a friend liked my recent picture. My present moment looks nothing like the moment that is just two seconds away. Time is something that never stops no matter how much you beg.

There are thousands of minor things that could change the past and the biggest one is fear.

Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat. The definition of fear allows you understand why people do not like bees or are scared to drive because both of those situations can cause pain. What I do not understand is why do we let fear affect our future? I am a communication major, whose focus is journalism, I have wanted to be a writer since I was 5- years- old and using notebooks to scribble out short stories that never truly ended. Growing up you are taught to dream big, watching people live out their goals. If you played sports you looked up to pro athletes, if you wanted to act you kept posters of Hollywood’s best on your walls but if you wrote you had to figure out who was going to be your goal.

I thought I had my life figured out when I got to high school. I was going to be a journalist. I wanted to write about music. I went a couple weeks with this dream until someone told me that music articles are just fluff and not real journalism, this scared me. I was now fearful of my future because I thought that a fluff writer could not be successful. Even though I have been writing for years, it scared me to think that I was not going to be successful or that I could not find a job in my career field. I allowed fear to talk me out of my passion and up until a week before college I thought I was going to major in nursing because that was practical. This opinion inflicted fear a sense of threat to my success. Why am I scared of something that cannot physically hurt me?

No matter who you are, where you work or what you major in you have allowed fear to alter your end goal. Even though your goal may not seem practical now to those around you do not allow the fear to shift your mindset. No one is successful on the first go of anything but just because something is scary does not mean it is not worth it. I am now in college and decided to go back to fluff stuff because this is what I love to do. I have decided to explore the lifestyle side of journalism and so far, it has been an interesting journey.

I am strong. I am successful. I am independent. I am a journalist. I am talented. I am going to follow through with my dream no matter how much it scares me.