The Last Word

By Aaryan Alexander | Posted: Sunday February 20, 2022

Acrophobia, the fear of heights. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. Aerophobia, astraphobia, trypanophobia, social phobia.

All of these have one term in common - phobia.

Simply known as…fear. Right now, standing here, I can assure you of one thing, and that is that everyone has experienced fear at some point in their time on this earth. Some even say that fear and other emotions are what makes us human. But, what actually is fear? What is this thing that everyone knows and feels? Well, according to Google (the one piece of tech in our modern world we rely on when we don’t know a word), fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain or harm".

Hi everyone. For those who don’t know me, my name is Aaryan Alexander. I was in Christchurch, around the start of the year, and went to this place called ‘Adrenalin Forest'. Some of you will know about this and some of you might not but it’s basically a place with a high, high ropes course. You look up and the trees are so tall that you feel so small. The obstacles start at maybe 1m and go up till they are 20m high. I’ll tell you guys a little secret. I’m afraid of heights. You’d be thinking "why would he go to a high ropes course if he was afraid of heights? Why would he even lecture us about it?" That’s exactly it. I wanted to challenge myself. Sometimes fear holds you back and you end up regretting not doing anything due to your fear. I was so sick of my fear holding me back, so I just wanted to embrace it. However, it was easier said than done.

Sometimes in life, whether you like it or not, you will be in situations where you are scared and that is completely normal. Fear is a primitive human instinct that alerts us that we are in situations that could potentially adversely affect us and initiates our fight-or-flight reactions. Back in the caveman times, it would’ve been alerting people to this massive animal that could kill them and sometimes was the difference between life and death. Nowadays our fears are different.

I guess what I’m trying to pass on to you boys is something I learnt during these holidays. Embrace your fear. It may only be little by little or it could be everything at once. Everyone functions differently. The first step is always the toughest. Most of the time the whole ‘fear’ aspect of it could just be us overthinking everything. It may be at school, work, on the sports field or any situation where you find yourself being held back by fear. Just embrace it and do what you’ve been wanting to do.

I will end this Last Word with two quotations. The first is by an unknown author.

“Fear is nothing more than an obstacle that stands in the way of progress. In overcoming our fears, we can move forward stronger and wiser within ourselves.”

The second is by Robin.S.Sharma.

“Being scared is part of being alive. Accept it. Walk through it."

Thank you.