Courage - V

My fourth grade teacher used to say : " Life is a lesson. You will always keep on learning. Don't confine yourselves to my classroom or any other classroom. Let your minds wander, imagine, enjoy, learn!!!!" I should also mention that my fourth grade teacher was HOTTTT!!!!!!! Small wonder then that I never really paid attention to anything she said at the time. But sometimes, your sub-conscious has this irritating little habit of retaining information that you would rather forget. This happened to be one of them.
Since then, I have moved away from that little room up on the fifth floor, my teacher probably won't recognize me now should she run into me on the street, and she probably still continues to teach snotty little fourth graders and give them similar advice. But words stay with you. She was right. Every single thing one does, no matter how small or mundane, teaches them something that they will probably take forward and better themselves with.
For instance, two years ago, K-man, after getting me suitably drunk to pay for his beers, suggested that we start a blog and co-write it. Were I in my senses, I would have said no. I have always tried to be somewhat of a recluse. I haven't really succeeded all that much, I admit, but hey, one can still try. To actually write something that would actually be scrutinized by over three readers, none of whom were my parents or well-wishing aunt, was scary. But drunken me said yes. I learnt something about courage that day and then on. Everytime I blog, it still scares me a little what some person would think of my writings. Do they find them good, having some amount of potential? Do they find them average, barely mediocre? Do they smack of just trying to appear more complicated than they actually are?? Do they just suck?? I don't know!! I still haven't mastered the art of writing the perfect blog, but I still do it. Rarely, I admit, but it is one of those things I never thought I would do, and now that I am doing it, I find myself still sticking to it!!
When we started this blog, we had two readers. Their comments meant a lot to us, and we did try and write in such a way that it would please all, me hoping to be funny, him hoping to prove his intellectual worth. He succeeded. I stopped caring after a while. Again, a lesson learnt from a comment left by one of the earliest readers of the blog : Stop worrying about the comments. He was right. Trying to sound funny often led to writings being forced, trying to elicit the "ha ha ha" from the readers. Those trying to be serious just resulted in whinings and ramblings being put up on the internet. So I stopped caring. I did ask for feedback, but as it clearly reflects, I never listened. It felt good. Once again, I was writing only for myself, and allowing others to read them, but not letting them influence what I wrote. The words come out a lot easier nowadays.

Courage is all about having the guts to take that extremely difficult first step. Once taken, courage is also about not taking the all - to - easy step back to the safe zone. Putting yourself in the line of fire is important. Preachy as it may sound, I speak only about my own personal experiences.

Growing up , I never was a brave kid. I still am quite a coward in many many ways. I get terrified to order a pizza from a pizza place, it takes me ages to go up and start talking to someone new, I would rather accept torture than going up to a random stranger and asking her out. ( I once did ask 12 girls out but that was a mere dare). However, one has to take the first step sometime. So I did. I took up a job in an industry that required me to take charge of myself and take responsibility for a lot of people who honestly couldn't care a hoot about what I thought. My entire first day of work consisted of me sweating to the point of dehydration. The second day went pretty much the same way. On the third morning, I walked up to a girl in office who I vaguely remembered from the haze of introductions on my first day and said "Help!!!" That's all it took. I was in, and friends with one of the most senior producers in the company who then helped me whenever I was in a tough spot. One little word, but the step towards that effort, from my side atleast, was completely draining. But it was worth it.

Courage doesn't necessarily mean fighting a lion bare-handed, or taking on wild horses single-handedly. Those are for the greeks and their ancient Gods. For me, courage is just taking the first step and leaving yourself vulnerable to whatever consequence that my arise. For me courage is sticking to that step no matter what the consequences are. Sometimes ask for help, other times fight for it by yourselves.

Sure picked a fine day to start pontificating. But heck, it's my first step!!!