Some fears are not known until you're staring them right in the eyes..
For my tertiary education, I had to travel to the Benin Republic and Looking back now, it sounds like a normal thing... People travel for school all the time but at that point in my life, it was a really big deal for me.
I wasn't just travelling to another city and coming back after a few days. I was going to another country to study, stay there, meet new people and basically figure things out as I went and yes, I was excited but I was also scared...
I think the biggest problem was that I didn't really know what I was going to meet there..
When you are leaving somewhere familiar, your mind suddenly becomes very creative... You start thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong.
What if I don't like the place?... What if I don't make friends?.. What if school is harder than I expected?.. What if I start missing home after two days? And of course, your brain doesn't stop there... It will happily give you another twenty questions you never asked for.
I remember that feeling of knowing I was about to leave what I was used to and enter a completely different environment..
There is something about crossing a border that makes the whole thing feel more serious.... Suddenly, you realise, “Okay, this is not just a trip anymore. I am actually going somewhere.” But the decision had already been made...
So eventually, I had to stop overthinking and go.... I won't lie and say I suddenly became fearless.
I was still nervous, I still had plenty of questions in my head but at some point, I realised something very simple.... If I kept waiting until I felt completely comfortable, I might never leave... So I went and that was how one of the most important experiences of my life started.
The funny thing about new places is that they usually feel strange at first...Everything looks different...
You don't know where everything is...
You don't know everybody... Even simple things can suddenly require extra thinking because you are still trying to understand how things work but after a while, you start settling in.
The things that initially looked strange slowly become normal and before you know it, you are living a life that once felt completely unfamiliar.
That experience taught me a lot.... I realised I could adapt...
I realised I could meet new people and build relationships... That I could be away from everything I was familiar with and still find my feet... Most importantly, I realised that being uncomfortable doesn't mean you are in the wrong place.. That was one of the biggest lessons I took from the experience.. Every new experience comes with moments like that.
The important thing is that I stayed...I kept learning... I kept adjusting and eventually, what was once unfamiliar became part of my normal life..
When I think about that period now, I realise that I didn't really overcome fear by defeating it... I just stopped giving it so much authority... The fear was there, i simply went ahead anyway and that changed the way I look at fear today...
I don't think courage means that you suddenly become this extremely confident person who isn't worried about anything... That's not how it works.... Sometimes you are still nervous, you just decide that the nervousness isn't going to make the decision for you.
That trip taught me that some of the best experiences in life can be hiding behind the things that initially scare us... If I had allowed fear to convince me that staying in my comfort zone was the better option, I would have missed an experience that taught me independence, adaptability and confidence in ways I probably couldn't have learned from simply reading about them and honestly, I think that lesson has stuck..
Whenever I face something unfamiliar now, I remember that I have been in that position before.... I remember not knowing exactly what was going to happen and I remember going anyway.
Of course I get scared.... I'm human.
There are still situations where I think twice before taking the next step but now I understand that fear doesn't always mean don't do it.
Sometimes it simply means this matters to you and sometimes it means you have never done this before So I don't wait for fear to disappear anymore.... I just try not to let it drive.
That journey to the Benin Republic started with a lot of uncertainty, but it ended up teaching me something I still carry with me.
You don't have to feel ready before you begin... Sometimes you just have to go and figure things out along the way.... I was scared, but I went anyway. And I'm glad I did.
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