Reminders

I  had this colleague....we both joined my first IT company on the same day. He was, in one word, 'irreverent'. A kind of don't care person. There were shitty bosses who bullied us, and we would squirm uncomfortably. Not this fellow....he was just cool around them, as if their bossyness didn't affect him one bit. It was interesting to see how he gave no shit to their pressure tactics. Or say, there's this girl who thinks she's a super-charmer and tries to act funny, and everyone's going gaga...and this fellow...he would talk to her as if she were a nobody, and put her in her place. I would think, Wow!

He carried the same attitude everywhere, dealing with people on the road as if they were lesser mortals. His fearlessness was kinda inspirational to me because I would be awkward showing rudeness to a stranger. I would wonder how he could do this. I wanted to learn it. And if there was a small function in the office cafeteria, this guy would coolly walk on the stage, grab the mike and sing a lovely song...and then engage the audience asking which other song they wanted to listen to. He was totally in his skin, super cool and comfortable, in front of an audience

He had, however, one mortal fear...and when I realised what it was, I was dumbstruck. He was petrified of Dogs! Terribly scared and shivering to the bones. Sometimes I would drop him off on my bike, and say, there's a small Pomeranian puppy at a distance...and this guy would start trembling and squirming from a mile away. He would be on tenterhooks until we passed by that dog! " I was bitten by a dog when I was a kid," he would explain. And then would go on at length at how people die of rabies and how life is uncertain etc etc. I would laugh at this irrational fear of his--maybe because I never feared dogs--and I would think, this guy is super confident of so many things that make me anxious, yet here he is, mortally scared of something which I'm totally comfortable with!!!

I unfailingly remember him whenever I contemplate 'fear'. This fear...any fear, I think it holds a key. What we're scared of, what makes us tremble, what gives us sleepless nights, what stops us in our tracks and dictates our decisions....it also carries something, some message, something unresolved deep in our marrow and cells. The usual thing we do is to push it away and pretend it isn't there until it shows up in our face, and then we have no option but to start shivering and see how we can escape it. We carry it throughout our lives, sometimes, not bothering to resolve it and get to the other side, and see what paradise(or hell) it leads to.

Everyone's fear is different, maybe because everyone's story in their cells is different. But I have no doubt, with my own triumphs over a few small fears, that this Fear---is a beautiful doorway to a more enriching and rewarding existence, right in this moment.

And the only way to claim such an enriching experience, is to step right in the direction of the fear...not away from it.