fear less, experience more

     Midterms are finally over and I can finally write a little bit again about something that has been on my mind over the past few days. I love Colbie Caillat... especially a lot ever since I saw her in concert at the House of Blues in Anaheim this past summer. Something about her, she is so calm and collected and so genuine about what she rights. One of my favorite songs of hers is "Fearless."  As I have driven to work lately, I have listened to that song and it got me thinking about what it means or what it is to fearless. I think that when we hear the word "fearless" we think about someone that is not scared of anything, as the dictionary defines it: "lacking fear" or "without fear." We can look at people we know or have known or even perhaps learned about and label them as fearless. We see such courage and strength in these people and wish we could be like them.

     I believe that it is impossible to be completely fearless, but I do believe that it is possible to fear-less. Even the strongest, bravest, biggest people have fears of some sort, but they don't allow themselves to be controlled by their fears. We all have many fears: fear of getting hurt, fear of knowing the truth, fear of rejection, fear of public speaking fear of heights, fear of bugs, and the list goes on and on. These fears hinder our ability to act in the way we ultimately wish we could. We don't go after the job we want because we are afraid we might not get it, we are afraid of traveling because we afraid of heights, we are afraid to talk to someone because they might reject us or perhaps on the flip side, we are afraid to be ourselves because we are afraid of what someone is going to think.

     I had started this post a few weeks ago but things got so hectic that I never finished it. Today I had a 9 hour debate tournament and it was honestly one of my favorite experiences of this year. I am tired and my brain hurts a little bit and my feet are slightly numb after 9 hours of running around in heels but today I learned a million life lessons. To be able to debate is to be able to persuade and that in itself is a powerful tool. I wish I would have started debating earlier, I really felt like myself today. I knew I was doing what I should have been doing, it wasn't perfect in any sense and there were surprises around every corner. My partner and I were assigned to one side in a specific room on campus, when we got there, we found out there were last minute switches that no one had bothered to inform of us. We are actually in a room, in a another building and oh yeah, the opposite side. But it is in those moments where I learned what debate is about, to be able to think on the spot and to be able to articulate those thoughts. The topic is announced only minutes before the debate so there is not much time to prep,  a true debater can tackle any topic, at any given moment and whether or not they even know whats going on, they confidently approach every debate. If you don't know it, you fake it and having full confidence of your abilities will allow you to sell any point.
     I allowed my fear of i-don't-even-know what to prohibit me from joining a debate team in high school, or even earlier in college. It was some kind of combination of fear of commitment, public speaking, time management, losing sanity and laziness that let me put off what I really wanted to do, debate. When I woke up early this morning, all I wanted to do was go back to bed,   and I was not sure of what I had gotten myself into. It's funny how you may really want to do something but you can also talk yourself out of it. Fortunately, I had to go, my class grade depends on it but I took the approach that I have challenged myself with, fear less and that made all the difference today.
     There were so many opportunities were it was so possible to just shut down. You were just handed a new topic, you have 30 seconds to construct a 8 minute debate and there are men in suites just staring at you, anxious to attack you with a plethora of counter-attacks. It clicked pretty quickly on the vast similarities between the game of debate and the game of life. There are no guides or preparations, every moment is a surprise. The only thing you can do is play along and give it your all or sit back and retreat with regret.
     So many times I have allowed myself to put things I am passionate about on the back burner. I worry that I won't find time or that I will overwhelm myself or I'll realize I won't like it and a million other excuses. But that has changed the past few weeks. First of all, where there is a will, there is a way. If it is my passion, I AM going to find time. If I realize I don't like it, at least I gave it a chance. As Colbie would say: "Better believe I'm fearless, fearless."