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Rejection

At base, I'm afraid of rejection. The manifestations of this fear come in a variety of forms. These include fear of appearing incompetent in front of my students at school, fear of sounding incompetent in front of my peers, and fear of failing to keep up an interesting conversation. There are certainly other fears, but I think this is most prevalent.

Unfortunately, it has been this fear that has prevented me from understanding who I am meant to be. I've experienced those halcyon days when I reached my potential and knew exactly what I was made of. Those days, those moments, seem to be oases amid a desert of confusion and forgetfulness as to who I really am.

Instead, I find myself hiding-- both literally and figuratively-- from those risks that would allow me to begin growing. To be sure, I would face failure, but the one lesson I would learn, I think, is that this failure is not the leviathan that I think it. What is most discouraging, though perhaps most heartening as well, is that this fear resides in me. It can be controlled, defeated. The task for me, then, is to face it, one fear at a time. I will get hurt, for sure, but at least I would begin to know who I am.
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