Overcoming My Fears Through Passion || A Personal Post

If you've followed me for awhile, you'll have read a little something I wrote just before 'The Good Wife' ended last spring. (Guys, it's been 11 months since TGW ended...)

I mentioned that I would be indebted to 'The Good Wife' for drawing me into its universe, making me feel so passionately about its characters, their actions and the world they developed from their inspiration, the Elliot Spitzer press conference. I said I would love the show for fuelling me with passion and so many opinions that my fears about opening up and expressing myself fell to the wayside. My need to reveal my interests, what excited and disappointed me forced me out of my shell.

For the first 15 years of my life (didn't get opinionated till Season 4-5 of the show), I had been the quiet one. I hated drawing attention to myself - and had built my online persona to relieve tension. 

When the show started to make me think, however, I needed to use my voice. I wanted to voice my opinions - thoughtful or shallow, emotional or logical, repetitive or unique.

It gave me the confidence to speak out.

My passion and my interest superseded by fears.

Unfortunately, transferring that feeling to real life has taken more time. After a few years of ups and downs, happiness mixed with sheer pain, rekindling of old friendships combined with broken relationships - things have really begun to look up for me.

It's the first time in recent memory I don't feel like someone who's missing something. I feel like a person and it's empowering.

And it's reflecting in the things I'm doing this year.

I'm taking a leadership course, committing myself to a volunteer program, learning more about mental health, chatting to new people and rekindling my love for new television once again.

It hadn't clicked to me how far I have come in the last few years until today. 

Today, I stood up in a small crowd - at the request of my teacher/lecturer/mentor - and told prospective students about the absolute best course I've done at university.

It was last minute, as I fielded a call in the middle of my taxation class - listening to the request and before even thinking about the consequences, I said yes. 

My deliberative nature stepped aside as I let my confidence and my PASSION speak for myself. 

I stayed up late last night, plotting out key points of discussion - unsuccessfully - but today's little presentation went off without a hitch.

"I wouldn't have been able to do this two months ago," I admitted after I finished. (I meant five months ago, but time has freakin' FLOWN by this year, so excuse me.)

"It made me proud to see how much you've developed since completing the course," the lecturer responded.

All I could say was 'thank you'. And I meant it. Not only for giving me new skills to talk about in my graduate job interviews, but giving me the confidence to step up.

I believe a moment like that exists for us all. Passion and strong values can overcome your biggest fears. You just have to let it.

Emily

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P.S. The course was dedicated to learning about social impact and applying skills to real-life situations in order to make a difference to the wider community through social impact projects. I don't want to go into too much detail on fear of revealing my university, but I just wanted to note this because I am genuinely interested in social impact and hope you're inspired to learn more. I have another, more detailed post coming up, so hopefully, I've piqued your interest till then.

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