One Lesson A Day Challenge #6 — Face Your Fears and Embrace The Unknown

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.”

— Henry Ford

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

— Nelson Mandela

One thing that I thought about today was about the fear of the unknown. I think everyone has this thought sometimes about their goals and ambitions:

“What if I put in all my time and effort and nothing comes out of it? What if I don’t get what I expect (money, fame, prestige)? What other opportunities could I have used all that time for? Maybe I shouldn’t even commit to this from the start — I’m just wasting my time and nothing might come out of it. Why should I bother?”

Going down this line of thinking always gets me anxious. But after I detach myself from these thoughts and observe them closely, my true motivations are exposed.

There’s a part of me that wants to write only for the sake of writing, to share what I think and feel because I enjoy it and I believe that it can help other people. But there’s obviously another part of me that cares a lot about external validation and “results”.

How many likes am I going to get if I write this? How many new followers did I get today? Why should these questions matter to me if my “WHY” of writing is to share my authentic thoughts and realizations? Writing is a way for me to conceptualize what I really think and get to know myself.

These two motivations can clash. I don’t think having both incentives is bad. Everyone would like recognition for their hard work and for their talent. Everyone would like to be compensated and feel like they’ve earned their keeps with their own hands.

It just gets fickle when the motivation leans too much toward one side rather than maintaining a healthy balance between the two. The biggest worry that looms over my head is the thought of finding a way to monetize my content.

Because I don’t know a certain or definite way that I can receive a living wage from writing, I am scared to commit to this path fully. I am scared of the unknown because I feel like deciding to take writing seriously means a lot of sacrifices that I am not sure if I am ready for. I am scared of staying on this path because of so many unknowns. I want to have certainty that I will receive something of value or be rewarded for the efforts I put in.

But I know that in life, you can’t ever expect to have everything go the way you expect them to go. I also know that sometimes, even if you feel like you tried your best, you will not be rewarded what you believe to be your fair share.

This reminds me of the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible. Cain and Abel are seen to be the two attitudes that we can take when God (or life) does not give us what we think we should receive.

It is implied that both of them worked in their respective fields, but Abel is favored by God while Cain does not receive the blessings that Abel receives. Cain becomes angry with God, decides to take his anger out on his brother, and ultimately ends up killing him.

Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a tiller of the fields. The story is arbitrary as to how hard they worked and how much they sacrificed (except for the fact that Abel was a shepherd and that he sacrificed high-quality meats). It said that the Lord (or life) did not find favor in Cain’s sacrifices.

Why? It never says.

Maybe the story was created this way to show the level of randomness that exists in life. Maybe it is trying to imply that Cain did not sacrifice as much as Abel did. Maybe it is trying to say that Cain chose to become angry and bitter at the state of the world rather than shouldering the responsibility of changing his life.

Maybe after seeing his brother do well, he could have learned what he was doing and changed his own ways. Maybe instead of blaming the ‘injustice’ of the state of the world and the people around him, he should have reflected and analyzed what he could fix about himself. Maybe instead of becoming bitter and resentful toward the world, he could have found another way to turn his life around.

And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

Cain and Abel represent the two choices that we as humans can take. There will be times where we are not recognized or rewarded for our work. We could put in a lot of hard work, time, and effort, yet still fall short of our grand expectations.

We might not find favor and might not have good fortune for a long time — longer than we might be ready to bear.

We might see people around us finding happiness and succeeding in everything they do, and grow bitter and angry.

We might harbor vengeful thoughts against life itself, to get revenge in any way at the injustice that you’ve suffered. We will take it out on those who least deserve it.

From this story, I continue to realize how quickly I could adopt a mindset like Cain. I realize that I need to continuously reflect whenever I feel like I am not getting what I deserve from my work. Maybe it’s bad luck. Maybe it’s a number of things.

But I believe the biggest lesson here is to always look back at what you could do about it and focus on changing yourself. Maybe I’m not working as hard as I thought I was. Maybe I’ve been too stagnant with my content and have been tricking myself into thinking that I’ve been trying my best to be more creative. Maybe I’ve gotten so used to my style of writing that I refuse to explore other avenues. Maybe I’m lazy and haven’t been seriously looking into ways of monetizing my content or finding jobs that I’d really enjoy.

Maybe it’s not life. Maybe it’s me.

Even if it was life, what could I do about it? It would be better if the problem was with me. Then I could actually do something about it.

“I must tell you that I should really like to think there’s something wrong with me- Because, if there isn’t, then there’s something wrong with the world itself-and that’s much more frightening! That would be terrible. So I’d rather believe there is something wrong with me, that could be put right.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party