My mind paced back and forth: Yes. No. Yes. Nope. No way. At the moment, this was the biggest decision in the world, and everything else was rendered secondary.
My uncle asked me — an 11-year-old amateur guitarist and singer — to perform for his friends. To me, everything rode on this decision. If I didn’t take this opportunity, I thought that it would confirm I didn’t have the guts to make it in the music industry, which was of course my life’s purpose at the time. The fear came from a reason I cannot pinpoint; I just made assumptions about people judging me before even considering a positive outcome.
Moments after telling my uncle about my final decision, I felt a pit in my stomach. I knew it was because I’d chickened out, like I always did, and convinced myself I wouldn’t be able to pull off this performance. I went down a rabbit hole of repeating to myself that I would not be the next Taylor Swift and that I would never sing or play the guitar again. Wishing I had said yes felt like I was kidding myself, because I truly believed at my core that I was not capable of performing. Why should I even pretend I could? So I moved on and continued to just sing in my room, forcing my dog to be my audience, because I knew from that one experience that I would never be able to do the complex, daunting task of performing for a real audience.
What was so complex about it? What was so hard? I could not answer that in the moment, nor even now, years later. Because it was not complex. In fact, it was so simple. After sharing this feeling of fright with my brother, he laughed at me. Naturally, I got angry at the fact that he was so clearly making fun of me. After I stormed off and recollected myself, I asked him why he scoffed at me. He told me the truth I needed to face: I had created a mental blockage in my head where I convinced myself I wasn’t capable of something, just because the challenge made me uncomfortable.
As I came to terms with my timid mentality, I recognized myself avoiding uncomfortable situations or even just overcomplicating simple tasks in so many aspects of my life. Little, insignificant things would cut down my drive to chase what I wanted, like becoming a performer. I wouldn’t wave to someone in the hallways because I would be convinced that we weren’t good enough friends. Sometimes I wouldn’t even go for runs in public places because I didn’t view myself as a long-distance runner. My brother truthfully calling me out for this attitude instilled deep frustration. I made a decision to change my ways because I was tired of always not knowing and regretting what I didn’t do. I wanted to really experience opportunities through putting myself out there, even while knowing there was a possibility of failure. I would accept that everything happens for a reason, and if I felt discouraged, I could always zoom out and remember that I am living on a floating rock.
With my new self-assuredness, I came back to my brother to ask what I could do to fix my laughable fears. The advice he gave me was to not overcomplicate things because most of the time “it’s that simple.”
I gave his exact words long and deep consideration over the next few weeks. For the tasks I was too scared to attempt, I had no good reason — if I knew how to play the guitar and sing, what was stopping me from performing? If it was because I was scared of judgment, then people would judge me and forget. If I was scared of failing, then I would fail and move on. There was nothing more to it and that eased my mind.
Since this concept was on my mind now, I decided that I would not only acknowledge when I would let fears overcome me, but also act on it. I was finally able to allow myself to be more bold with small things. I had started to look through my brother’s eyes and appreciate this mindset. Whether it was volunteering to go first for a class presentation or performing in front of many, many judgmental people, I was at peace no matter what becuase I had the idea of simplicity in challenging times — which would ground me.
Although the ability to tune out mental blocks has been wonderful, it doesn’t always work out the way I want. There are multiple times my plan has not come to life the way I wanted it to; sometimes I am still a procrastinator and put off simple, little daily things. But I am still able to be peaceful with it and remember that everything happens for a reason and most things don’t actually hold the gravity we assign to it.
Changing the way my brain was wired was not easy. It took many occasions to build a pattern in order for my brain to ultimately make this mindset my natural instinct. From this process, I learned that if you really apply yourself and reflect on the decisions you make, you can control your life much more effectively. Simply having acceptance and not overcomplicating things is peaceful. After all, it’s that simple.
