Thoughts

He allowed little to pass through his mouth. This was not only because he lived alone. It was, he thought, better to remain quiet. Warnings had been issued from many sources showing that much talk leads to trouble. Indeed, privacy was his closest companion, and his gravest defender. Perhaps a better word now would be deceiver. He felt as much, anyway. Over the years, he had built his life on the premise that actions speak louder than words, and while he saw that this was true, he failed to recognize the danger of too much privacy: isolation. Everything he read and heard in the media told him to man up, to make something of himself through grit, and now that he had seemingly done this, he was alone with his accomplishments. Abstract trophies adorned the mantle of his mind, collecting the dust of stasis and time. In fact, he was afraid. He knew that none of the things he had achieved mattered now, and he felt the pride in them melt away and leave him exposed. “There is nothing left,” h...

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...