This week I attended a workshop in preparation for the upcoming school year. What I picked up from the break-out sessions will be useful in my classroom this Fall and the two keynote speakers where entertaining and inspirational. The first keynote speaker played this clip about Will Smith speaking about fear and his experience about skydiving that struck a personal note with me.

The above clip is entertaining and worth watching in its entirety, but it is what he said in the following quote that I feel is the real message.

You realize that the point of maximum danger is the point of minimum fear…The lesson for me is why were you scared in your bed the night before? What do you need that fear for? Just don’t go. Why are you scared in your bed 16 hours before you jump? Why are you scared in the car? Why could you not enjoy breakfast?…Fear of what? You’re no where near the airplane. Everything up to the stepping out there’s actually no reason to be scared. It only just ruins your day. You don’t have to jump. And then in that moment when you should be terrified is the most blissful experience of your life and God placed the best things in life on the other side of terror. On the other side of your maximum fear are all of the best things in life.

Will Smith on Fear

I like the majority of people have fears. I used to be terrified of thunder and lightening as a kid. I’d cry and hide. Today I have better control over this fear in that I don’t cry and I only go hide if it’s threatening weather, like a tornado. I can recognize that there is some beauty in a thunderstorm even if a really loud boom still sets my heart racing. I also hate pigs, like I’m terrified of them. There are people who are arachnophobic, afraid of spiders. Me, total swinophobic. Confronted with a pig and I have a full on anxiety attack, yet I recognize that this is such a strange and silly fear (and admiringly very funny). Pigs can be mean but the odds of a pig really doing any harm to me is exceptionally slim. This fear, I’m willing to let be. I don’t live on a farm and the only time I could encounter a pig is at the county fair once a year.

I used to think I was shy, and maybe I was, but in reality my shyness was born out of fear. I was afraid of what other people might think of me or say about me. Given some of my social experiences in school early on one can kind of understand how that fear evolved. I didn’t take risks when it came to personal relationships. I was too afraid of being hurt or being laughed at. Unlike my fear of pigs though, this is not something I could ignore.

It has taken me an awful long time in life to let go of that fear and not let it rule my life. Will Smith is correct when he said that on the other side of your fear there are all these great things. I have made some deep, everlasting friendships. The bliss that I found by confronting this fear has been, as Will Smith said, one of the greatest things in my life. Humor, laughter. I discovered that I can make people laugh. I have this picture of some of my college buddies that I took. They were crowded on the couch in my friend Nate’s room. Their faces are pure joy, heads thrown back, each of them caught up in their biggest laugh. Pure joy. As I had clicked the button on the camera I had said something, some joke, that they apparently found most amusing. I no longer remember what the joke was, but I remember that feeling that I got from making my friends laugh. No longer do I hide my humor. In my classroom we laugh a lot. Students love being in my classroom because its a fun (and safe place). They leave it not only having learned something about art but also happy.

Taking risks and facing my fear boys and dating and THOSE kind of relationships took a lot longer. I have regrets in that I almost always seemed to let the fear win. I was scared of rejection. Could I have jumped to the other side of fear and found my greatest bliss (or at least the truth)? Yes, but I didn’t. I was terrified the whole time. I’ve dated but nothing was ever really serious. I never took the risk with anyone until my husband. I took a humongous leap of faith in becoming involved with him. Things are hardly perfect and we’ve struggled but there have been great rewards, great bliss in letting go and facing my fear.

So, from this point on, I am going to face my fears (except pigs) and make that jump. There are great rewards on the other side. I encourage everyone else to do the same.