“You can't be trapped by
other people, you can only be trapped by your own fear.”
-Michael Grant, Hunger
Michael Grant is such an
amazing author, and when I read this quote, I immediately identified with
it. I am someone who is timid, and someone
who lacks confidence. “Fear” is not an
uncommon word in my vocabulary. Whenever
I read this quote in Hunger, I almost
forgot that I was reading. I had had an
especially tough year, and the word that kept pulsating through my mind had
been, “Trapped.” Instead of seeing faces
of people as my jailers, I realized that it was my own fear. People could not prevent me from doing the
things that I most desired; my fear was the one intangible object that had been
looming over my head, and preventing me from being the person that I wanted to
be. If I could learn to let go of this
fear, I would be free to do the things that I loved, and be free to be
myself. I could not blame other people
for trying to protect me from certain things that would end up doing me more
harm than good, or just the opposite. In
the same moment that I realized that I was being held back by my fear, I
realized that the same went for the people that I fantasized were keeping me behind
bars. These people that I loved and
trusted were being held back by their fear for me, and I could not blame
them. In the moment that I read this
quote, I decided that I had to stop letting my fear control me, and forgive
others if their fear was controlling them.
What a powerful realization for you. I would guess you are far from alone in being trapped by fear and feeling timid--most of us have felt this way. And I can relate to the fear I have for someone else (what if something happened to my son?) threatening to hold him back from being and doing what he might really want to. It's so liberating to let go of fear, but it's not always easy, is it?
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