Fear.

Everybody has fears.

Most of us were taught to fear our fears, growing up. Fear is used to hold us back from doing what society doesn't want us to do... such as making alot of noise, or being naughty.

As an adult, I still feel overwhelmed with fear, wherever that came from. And if you are familiar with fear, you would know that it's very, very crippling. (such as the fear of success)

The most pressing fear I am having now is the fear sharing information with the world. I didn't like socialising as much as most people do. I was afraid that the more informaiton I reveal about myself, the more I would be "found out". Found out about what? Is there really something to hide?

Upon introspection, I find that my fear of success stem from my school days, over the course of my primary years through my university days.

Back in my lower primary years, I was a high-achiever - always aiming to be at the top of the class, not content with 98% marks, aiming for the hundreds - and constantly living with the pressure of falling, of being called "sombong" or arrogant in Malay, by my classmates. I was afraid of making mistakes in my exam papers, and at the same time, I don't want to be judged that way, because I am certainly not an arrogant child nor one who likes to show off. But ofcourse, that level of perfectionism is sometimes perceived as arrogance by some, or perhaps I had unintentionally done so.

Inevitably, one has to give way to pressure. My grades starts to drop. And by the time I entered secondary school, I am one of those hanging on at the last position of the top class (that I have always been in), just praying that I wont get kicked into the second class or so. There, I hanged on for the rest of my schooling years. I was glad I made it through with grades good enough to enroll in a reasonably good course in a good university.

After finishing secondary year 5, I was admitted to MMU (Multimedia University) and started my foundation course to a degree in Creative Multimedia.

During my first term there, I was pretty exited. It was like getting a second chance in life - moving in to the hostel, studying a course that I am more interested in than all that mumble-jumble stuffs in school, new friends, new environment; I wanted to recreate a life like how it was back in my primary days - being a high achiever instead of a slacker, I wanted to be successful again!

But soon, the temptations of uni life proofed to be too hard to resist - Broadband internet, mmorpg, boyfriend, late-nite chats - by the time I entered my First Year, I was back to a slacker. By the end of my Second Year, I already felt the need to hide and run from alot of people - friends, class mates and lecturers, keep a low profile, fly below the radar - just so not to draw so much attention to my failures, my truancy, late submissions and the like. I have always stuggled with procrastination (and eventually learned from this productivity enthusiast) and along the way, discovered some strange, self-sabotaging behaviours; e.g. if I tell people about my progress, my work will simply stall there, without further progress. Therefore, I start to avoid talking about my work.

All those year, I constantly carry this overwhelming sense of guilt and shame, that when I meet people face to face, they would judge me for my weaknesses. So I avoided meeting people. I went on friend-hopping, knowing them only long or deeply enough to complete assignments and group works, but avoiding intimacy. I didn't want them to know how weak I really am.

Interestingly, when I did my final-year-project in Virtual Reality, I started a blog to log my progress. I temporarily overcame my procrastinating tendencies by fully immersing myself in the process and allowing myself to be vulnerable by reporting even the blunder or mistake I've made. Being a perfectionist, I had to tell myself to "post it up no matter how ugly I think it is." It seemed to work.

So here I am, posting it up, embracing my fear (like this guy here), even though it's ugly. What do you think?