What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

I know this is a fairly expansive question, but one that we should ask ourselves as habitually as we check our phones every hour. 

Fear is a complex sensation. It’s accompanied and triggered by a variety of overlapping thoughts, feelings, emotions, instincts and physical responses.

Fear is rooted in a multitude of motivations and based around our perceptions of experiences, either valid or imagined.

Fear is the instinctual voice in our head that reminds us that it’s probably not the best idea to high five a cactus, or jump out of a moving vehicle. Those fears are pretty solid. I think it’s safe to say that those fears serve us. Maybe some of us could benefit from entertaining a little more fear…or common sense.

But what about the kinds of fears that hold us back? I’m not talking about the fears that keep all of our limbs intact. But the kind that freezes us in our tracks because it is so ridiculously persuasive. Fear is necessary for our survival – a natural response that exists within all of us.

But… at the same time, fear is a bully--the culprit guilty of endorsing resistance, immobility, and sometimes completely ridiculous irrationality.

Even when we are completely aware that our fears are grounded in absurdities, they can still overpower us. 

Trust me, I know my fear of walking alone in my dingy, old, creepy basement at night to do my laundry, is probably not based on any kind of factual or rational idea, but completely rooted in the too many episodes of American Horror Story that I binge watched on Netflix. But does that make me any less scared that a monster might jump out from behind a box? NEGATIVE…

                Now that’s just preposterous!

If you’re still with me, great, we have identified just two types of fear… this is a blog, not a novel.

We have the:

“Lets try not get hurt or die,” fear: I.E.

-- The type essential for survival without major injuries or deformities

And then the less productive:

“There’s definitely a monster in my basement and if I go down there alone it will absolutely kill me,” fear: -- The kind obviously rooted in something that we have never experienced, witnessed, and will likely NEVER encounter, but it still consumes us.

Now I can’t speak for everyone. Maybe you found humor in the fact that I am legitimately terrified of the factitious beast lurking in the shadows of my basement, but you can’t deny that an unreasonable fear has held you back at least once in your life. So maybe you are not scared of monsters, but as a college student or potential college student, I'm confident you can relate to at least one of the fears below.

When you have to play the oh-so-popular name repeating game and you're up last...

"Yeah, theres no way that all of the answers could be C"

                                                                                          The moment you realize that graduating means if you haven't already, its time to get a big kid job, start paying people back, and look into a vacuum that isn't battery operated...Welcome to adulthood, what's there to fear?

I'm graduating in about a week. I can tell you that fear is running rampant in my mind right now. Fear of what my next steps are, fear of forgetting my speech or face planting on stage. In my time as a student at Kalamazoo Valley Community College I was overwhelmed by fears that made relatively straight forward tasks, unreasonably more difficult than they had to be. I was afraid I would fail...I didn't. I was afraid I wouldn't ever finish my classes, I DID. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to balance my life in my various roles, I COULD. 

So I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that fear is an inevitable part of life. We all have things that scare us. How you work with that fear is what will define you. 

Yeah some of our fears turn out to be accurate, but things don't play out with near the intensity as our fears lead us to believe. We have to remind ourselves everyday that if we're scared, we should probably figure out why--and if we can't figure out why, we probably shouldn't let the fear make our decisions.

You will be pleasantly surprised to learn that many others just like you have fears similar or identical to yours. You don't have to navigate the whole process of life by yourself, but you are the only one who can turn your fear into possibilities.  When we stop feeding our fears they become much smaller.

What would you do if you weren't afraid? 

Now go do it!

Bring on the fear, we're still gettin' stuff done! Thanks Kalamazoo Valley Community College and everyone who has supported me so I could turn my fears into success! Congratulations to fellow graduates--don't be afraid to fall down (on stage or in life), we will all be there to help you back up.

Sincerely,

Alexandra Claus, 

-- Soon to be former intern, student, and Graduate of Kalamazoo Valley in T minus 8 days!