Fears, Causing You to Miss Out on Life

An article found online, translated…

Recently, I’d come to discover, that my older child lacked self-confidence. 

About four months ago, she’d told me, she wanted to submit a piece of writing to her school paper that hit the press once every year.  She’d told me, “I’d submitted a poem I’d written.”  I’d asked her, “You’d written countless number of essays, why not submit those too?”  She’d replied, “There’s NO limit to the number of articles one can submit, I can submit as many pieces as I wanted to…”, back then, I didn’t inquire any further, so, I couldn’t know what she was getting at exactly.

Later on, she’d never mentioned this again, and so, I’d forgotten about it also.

One day, don’t know what, but she’d started arguing with mom.  My older sister got super furious, immediately went into the bedroom, locked the doors behind her.  I too, was fuming also, to the point, that I no longer felt hungry, but, because it was, around supper time, I’d sat down to eat just the same.  In not even three minutes, my daughter marched out of her bedroom, announced, “The poem I wrote was accepted by the papers.”

Right then and there, it’d dawn on me, how much she really DID care about this matter.  And, it was, right after that FURIOUS argument she had with me, she could go into her room, turn on her computer, found out she’d won, and, came out of her room, happily shared the joys of winning with me.  She was beyond ecstatic.  Like how you’d just had a fight over the kids’ education, and realizing, that the lotto ticket you bought yesterday had won the biggest prize.  At this time, NO matter what the two of you were arguing so fiercely about before, would get reduced to unimportant matters.  (Of course, “packing up quick, so I can leave the other person”, is also a viable possibility).

“I’d waited so very long for the notifications, and it didn’t come, so, I thought that my poem didn’t get acknowledged,” she’d said. 

In the four months since she’d submitted her poem, she’d not mentioned it again.  Not because she’d forgotten about it, but because she didn’t want to handle the pains of not winning.  “From before when so-and-so told me how their essays were picked,” my daughter said, “I felt, that my poetry wasn’t good enough”.  Her fears got magnified, after she’d compared herself with other people’s achievements.

“You’d just submitted one piece?”, I’d asked her.

“Yeah.”

“You’d written so many essays too, why didn’t you submit some of those too?”, I’d asked her.

As parents, as long as our kids are not yet adults, they will forever need our show of support.  And that, was when I’d realized, that my daughter was too scared, she couldn’t deal with another rejection, so that, was why she’d submitted something she wasn’t really good at, writing, a poem.  She’d told me, “If I didn’t win, I can tell myself, that I didn’t submit a piece that was my forte, so naturally, I couldn’t possibly win.”  And, I’d discovered, that she’s NOT only without ANY confidences in this area, but also, in other areas of her life as well, making friends, so, her moods are easily, affected, by her friends emotional ups and downs too.—at which time, I didn’t want to ask why, I just wanted to be there for her, to offer my emotional support.

It’s Saturday night, because I took a nap too late in the afternoon, and for too long, my husband was already snoring beside me, but I’m still, reading in bed.  Rather than tossing and turning in bed, I’d picked up a magazine, and started flipping.  I’m thumbing through a sales magazine, a small volume, with ALL the good reads.  This article I was on, was about a young woman’s success in entrepreneurship, she had used her passions, and never-ending persistence, to push forward.  With just a pair of shaping leggins, she was able to make it into a multi-billion dollar venture in a few years.  When I thumbed across certain words that this woman stated, I just had to, hop out of bed, to show it, to my older sister, not caring if I wake my husband up or not.

“Hey sweetheart, in these past three months, had you failed at anything?”, she looked at me, with this question on her face, thought real hard, I didn’t do well enough, on my math major exam this time.”

“Holy, you didn’t do well, and you didn’t tell mom?”

“This doesn’t count, dear, you didn’t work hard enough, so, naturally, you’d not done well on it.”

“You want it from these past three months?”, she’d asked me, then, thought, real hard, and, couldn’t think of ONE thing!

“I’d just read about this successful entrepreneur, when she was little, her dad would always ask her each and every single week, ‘did you do anything adventurous, and it didn’t turn out okay?’ if she’d told her father no, her father would get disappointed.”  Every parent wanted her/his child to succeed, how could there be a dad who asked about the misses of the child’s actions?

“Do you realize, that you don’t have enough failures?”, I’d asked my daughter, right then and there, my daughter felt, that this, was an AMAZING way to look at things!  “So, how do I fail at something?”, she’d asked me.

“Didn’t you tell me, that there are so many opportunities for the essay contests?  Each time you thumb across one, send one of your pieces in.”  I’d told her, as I walked out of her bedroom, “I will come to inquire about how many times you’d failed from here on out!”  do not fear rejections.  Do you know how many times Harry Potter got turned down before it was finally published?

The roads that nobody ventured down, doesn’t mean that you can’t venture it.

P.S.

The essay title for that article I thumbed across on the business magazines was: “The TRUE Failures are in Not Attempting”.  Must we fail first, before we’re successful?  Not necessarily, misses before hits, is just encouragement.  The important thing is: you have the courage, to FACE your defeats.

This would be a lesson in life, that the mother “transferred” to her daughter, teaching her how to handle being rejected, because, there WILL be instances, when one gets rejected, whether it be in love, at work, or whatever, and this mother used the instance of her daughter’s disappointment of not being acknowledged before she found out her writings actually won, as a lesson for the child.  Lessons are everywhere, just seek them out, and, BE supportive, of your offspring, and be a shoulder for them to lean, or to cry on, that, is what being a parent is all about.