[What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react?]
Failing myself, never achieving anything worthwhile, and losing when I think I have every possibility of winning. Those’re things I fear, but not what I fear most.
I really only fear two things “the most”: succumbing to apathy and failing others. Let me explain.
Regarding “succumbing to apathy”, I mean that if I ever struggle to find interest in anything, that’ll be horrible. Think about it. What makes life worth living? The fun you can have during it. Then, what would be the point of living if you’re no longer entertained by anything? Besides perceived responsibilities to concepts like family, friends, or work…nothing. There’d be no point.
So far, I find enjoyment in a few things, including reading, writing, some video games, and my cats. As it is the case that I wish to make writing my career, I have a long-term plan for sustaining my sanity because I don’t think I’ll get bored of writing any time soon. It might begin to feel like a chore, but as long as I find even a few things that I can enjoy writing about, like these prompts, I’m sure I’ll be fine.
Even if writing for a living doesn’t work out and I grow tired of it, I’m willing to try new things, and since the world is pretty big and full of options, I doubt I’ll fall back into depression and apathy…which I was once trapped in before, but I’ll leave that for another day (or another prompt ;3).
Now, regarding “failing others”… That’s pretty self-explanatory. I don’t like letting others down when I have a responsibility. A simple example: group work in class. Despite being known as the “smart kid” (so special, I know) in a lot of my classes for the last two to three years, I lose my confidence in performing well when other people are involved. My own grade? Pfft, I can leave all my work and studying for the last day possible and still pass with a 90 in almost every class. But put me in a group with assignments that I lack even just a smidge of understanding in…and anxiety kicks in.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Of course, I don’t let it show. My reputation as the “smart kid” may not be all that valuable, especially when people become envious of my having achieved high grades with seemingly little effort, but I learned that showing confidence and eagerness to complete the project with my group raises morale. Often it is the case that everyone in the group is nervous about the assignment, so it helps a great deal to let them know that I believe we can do it…even if I end up doing 50-85% of the work by the end of it.
Trust me, I don’t like doing work, but if I know what to do and it’s not that troublesome, I’m gonna end up doing it. Hell, I just had a group project a couple weeks back in one of my classes and it ended up exactly as I predicted:
* Everyone else was hesitant because they didn’t fully understand what was required of us.
* Despite not understanding what we needed to do, no one was keen on asking the teacher for clarification.
* No one chose to make the first move in anything.
Now, all that said…it wasn’t that bad. Except for needing to do a lot of research on state laws (I HATE researching) and asking the teacher a lot of questions (thankfully he expected us to), it was pretty easy. Really, it was just time-consuming in nature, which I hate. I much prefer something requiring high quality than a long time to complete. That way I can put my skills to use in completing the assignment as quickly as possible yet still doing everything well. Then I have plenty of class time to read a book!
Anyway, back to the group project: I didn’t blame my groupmates. It’s natural to be a bit apprehensive when you have to work in tandem with others because then your efforts reflect on the grades of everyone involved…especially when one of your members is the “smart kid” with high confidence whom you don’t know much about.
Back to the prompt: I fear apathy and letting others down but am also fully capable of avoiding both.