FRAGMENTS OF ME

I didn’t realise fear was shaping my life until I noticed how small I had learned to live. Fear didn’t arrive loudly. It didn’t knock or announce itself. It settled in quietly, rearranged the furniture of my mind, and convinced me it had always lived there. I called it caution. I called it patience. I called it waiting for the right time. But fear has a talent for disguises. It teaches you how to shrink your dreams until they feel reasonable. How to silence your wants before they embarrass you. How to stay in places that no longer fit, simply because leaving feels heavier than staying. I learned how to survive before I learned how to live. I learned how to stay quiet, stay agreeable, stay unseen. Not because I wanted to, but because fear told me it was safer that way. Fear told me: Don’t want too much. Don’t love too deeply. Don’t try unless you’re sure you won’t fail. And when fear speaks long enough, it begins to sound like wisdom. It dresses itself as a responsibility. As maturity. As “being realistic.” So I listened. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I told myself I was being patient, that my time would come, that someday I would feel ready. But readiness never arrived. Until one day, I realised I wasn’t waiting for courage. I was waiting for permission. And fear was never going to give it to me. Fear made me lose many opportunities. Fear cost me time. It cost me chances I never took and words I swallowed whole. It made me doubt myself before the world ever had the chance to. It kept me stuck in places that felt familiar but slowly drained me. And the longer I listened to it, the harder it became to recognise my own voice. I didn’t even notice when my voice started fading. I just knew that somewhere along the way, my wants felt quieter, my dreams felt smaller, and my life felt like something I was merely observing instead of living. Noticing fear didn’t make it disappear. But it made me realise I didn’t want to live this way forever. It made me realise that I need to live more. That I need to live for myself. Fear didn’t disappear overnight. It still whispered. But noticing it gave me something I didn’t have before: a choice. And for the first time in a long time, I chose myself. A short reflection on courage and fear. It creeps in quietly, like a shadow stretching across the room, settling in the corners of your mind where doubts like to bloom. It whispers through silence, in the pauses, in the waiting, turning every “what if” into something devastating. Fear is the weight in your chest when you stand at the edge, the tremble in your hands when you question what’s ahead. It’s the voice that tells you, “You can’t.” “You shouldn’t.” “You won’t.” The one that keeps you small, the one that says, “Don’t.” And yet, fear is not always the villain we imagine it to be. What if fear was never the enemy, but the compass? What if every trembling step forward was proof that you were meant to move? What if the thing you’re afraid of is the thing that will set you free? What if the voices in your head that say, “You can’t” Are they only echoes of a past that no longer holds you? What if you let go of the fear of falling and realised you were made to fly? What if you stopped running from the unknown and started walking toward it, not with certainty, but with trust? What if fear is just the final door before something beautiful? And what if, just once, you didn’t let it win? Because fear is also the test, the fire before the rise, the thing that makes the brave step forward despite the lies. Fear doesn’t mean stop. Fear doesn’t mean failure. It means you are alive. It means you still care. So stand in it. Feel it. Let it come and let it go. Fear is just a visitor. It was never meant to stay. Feel the pulse of your heart, let the tension ignite, And remember, it’s through the fear that you will find your light.