You are never too old to get scared. The juxtaposition of fear is acting fearless or brave. I teach college students and MBA candidates how to construct speeches and deliver them with professionalism and confidence. According to the Book of Lists, speaking before a group is the number one human fear. That means that people would rather be the dead corpse in the coffin than the person at the podium giving the eulogy speech. By the way, dying is seven on the list. Many of my students can identify with this fear of public speaking and relish the opportunity to put that fear in the past.
Conquering your fears is something you are also never too old to do. I see many career changers join the ranks of graduate students daily. They often are feeling hopeless at that current job, they’ve been downsized, or they simply quit. Many of these new students fear failure and therefore look to find something new that they are “good at.”
Personally, I fear two very different things: heights and the dentist. Now, heights, I have had the chance to go toe to toe with over the last five years- choosing roller coasters, tall buildings and even the winding staircase of a light house in Barnegat, NJ. “Old Barney” almost got the best of me, but I soon recovered from its narrow, steep corridors with a breath of fresh area at its ocean banks. But the dentist, a very different story.
Firstly, let me say that I did have a bad experience when I was a freshman in college. A partially impacted wisdom tooth became infected and when the dentist tried to extract the tooth, the novacaine just didn’t take and I felt the entire experience. Needless to say, it was an aching pain that I will never forget. I have gone to the dentist since, but it was always an endeavor and eventually, I just gave up.
Today, I went- let me preface however, that I did not make the appointment, drive myself to the appointment, nor did I really willingly take the elevator up to the office. I told my best friend to treat me as a “hostile patient.” And so she did, an hour later, I learned that my teeth were in good shape, but I had work to be done. So, my next visit, if I accept the challenge, will be another chance to conquer my fear.
We can’t let fear get the best of us, we just have to keep trying. And if that means we have to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations in order to be healthy or hop a plane to NYC to visit a friend or family member, then so be it. We just can’t let fear get in the way of living.
Posted by scarbonaro 
