BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF FEAR

I didn’t want to go, and that was that. Why risk public humiliation when I could just avoid it? I made up my mind not to represent my region at a Bible competition held at the church’s annual camp meeting. The fear of failure is recorded as one of the top fears that holds people back in life. "What if I fail?" "What if I let everyone down?" At some point, we’re all faced with the tiny voice in our heads asking these questions.

After so many persuasions to go for the competition, I decided to try.

"It’s better to try and fail than not to try at all", right? Right!

"If you don’t try, you won’t know how far you can go", right? Right!

As the competition drew nearer, I kept a very positive mindset and told myself I could do whatever I put my mind to. On the day of the competition, I put away all my anxiety and gathered all the confidence I could muster. Together with my teammate, we marched on to victory. The questions were asked, and we provided answers, progressing and scaling steadily through different levels.

Out of the blue, a question came up that knocked us off our feet. We provided an answer, of course, but it wasn’t the right one, and so we were knocked out of the competition. As we stood up from the "hot seat" and walked to our seats, a thousand and one thoughts raced through my mind. I was finding it very difficult to believe that it was over, just like that. What happened to all my quotes about trying? What happened to all the pep talks I gave myself?

"It’s better to try and fail than not to try at all", right? Wrong! I had tried and failed, and I could boldly say that it would have been better if I had remained in my comfort zone.

"If you don’t try, you won’t know how far you can go." I had tried, but I hadn’t gone very far.

My thoughts were loud and loose; I had failed. The nightmare I had dreaded had caught up with me and wrapped its arms around me. Bitter tears gathered in my eyes as I brought myself to accept the reality of my failure.

After the competition, I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. I had brought shame and failure to our region. As an overthinker, I had already pictured how disappointed everyone would feel when they heard the news. Funny enough, nobody reacted as I had expected; I had been anxious for nothing.

I don’t recall everything that happened after the competition, but I do recall my decision to try again the next year. I speak for myself when I say this, "Nothing beats the fear of failing again." Together with my teammate, we worked hard to do better in the coming year, but as we worked, the fear of failing twice had a huge grip on me. More times than I can count, I considered giving up, but there’s something failure does to a person. It no doubt gives us the fear of failing again but also the push to do better. I always just thought to myself, "I’ve failed once, why fail again?" and so I worked extra hard.

On the day of the competition the next year, my eyes were red (literally, something had entered my eye while I was studying at night, and I scratched both my eyes). It was a do-or-die affair to me; we were either going home as victors or we weren’t going home at all. Just kidding, it wasn’t that serious.

Together with my teammate, we answered all the questions correctly and scaled through the tough levels. Long story short, we were tied with another region for first place. A question was asked to break the tie, and we came in second place. As much as we wanted to get first place, second place was far more desirable than our position the previous year.

The moral of the story is that those quotes were right. It really is better to try and fail than not to try at all, because who knows, you just might try and win! If you don’t try, you’ll never know how far you can go; you just might go farther than you think.

Every success this world has ever witnessed, every limit that has been surpassed, and every great story that has ever been told lie outside the boundaries of fear. Don't let the fear of failing keep you within its boundaries, because nothing beats the joy of success that comes after failure!