Dr. Phil says - Published in the GDN (9Sep2006)

Talk shows are not always the ideal place to get your inspiration from, but a few days ago while watching Dr. Phil, he said something that got me thinking about all the opportunities and challenges that I have missed in my life simply because I was afraid.

Dr. Phil said that most of what human beings do is driven by fear, people accept certain jobs because they are afraid they might not find a better one, get married to the first person that comes their way because they’re afraid of dying lonely, apply socially driven laws to be sociably acceptable and so on.

I was not sure if he meant it to be inspiring or depressing. I got to think of all the couples in the world formed simply because the world is becoming more ‘couple-oriented’, I thought about the babies born simply because the parents were expected to reproduce. I thought about the years people spent in jobs they had no passion for because they thought this is what is expected of them. I thought about the university degrees obtained, even the unwanted shoes, jeans and haircuts that people got simply because they thought they could not do better.

How many times have we been taught to accept things in life based on fear? Starting from potty training to the day we could choose chemotherapy over dying peacefully we make a series of decisions in life based on fear of what would happen if we do not something, or not doing something because of the fear of what would happen if we did. How many times were we told that God wants us to suffer because eventually we will be happier? If the man upstairs talked to us directly, I’m pretty sure he will say he cares for us too much to want us to suffer.

If you could imagine yourself as a little girl (sorry, boys), and life is a stroll in a garden. If your life was a cool summer day, it is mild and comfortable, it seems to be right to others, but really, sometimes the sun is too hot for your taste and you feel like going to a darker place called shadows, or sometimes it is not too hot but simply needs a breeze, then what happens when that breeze finally comes? It tosses your hair a little bit, caresses your face and might threaten to lift your dress up. Like a little girl, you giggle, and think of the possibilities, the wild way your hair could look, the shyness you could feel if the threat was actually an action, the kites you could fly.

But before you could get your hair to run wild, or find a kite, the breeze is gone, turning into a wind, hurricane or a storm elsewhere while you’re left with the same cool summer day you had started with. The only difference is, your cool summer day does not seem to be ‘right’ or ‘natural’ anymore. It is not as exciting as the breeze. The shadows don’t seem appealing anymore and staying indoors can’t do you much good. So what do you do? Do you chase the breeze? Do you wait for it to come back to you? Do you look for signs of it turning into thin air? Or do you stay indoors and look out of the window just to see it pass you by?