Today, as I was lost in the middle of some sunflower field, quickly losing sunlight and maybe walking my 8th-9th mile of the day, I remembered a poignant conversation I overheard yesterday at Mahrutis (the local hangout bar we all end up after training days)
How the heck am I going to navigate without Googlemap?
I looked into the field and for a split second remembered with glorious dedicated detail of every time I've been late to work, meeting friends, or just too lazy to figure out an actual map and how I just plugged in the address into my smartphone (when its memory wasn't full with pictures of flowers and brownies) and just went out (and still ended up getting lost because I can't tell my north from south according to the sun).
One of my biggest fears I've stated before was getting lost in Kenya, and still is. I don't want to stumble into a different town in transit to some other place, step into the wrong matatu and just...
...wait what? What's the worse that can happen? That I get lost and get robbed or murdered? I find that highly unlikely because
1. I would have to deliberately travel at night
2. Not be prepared enough to keep emergency money in reserve
3. Tattoo on my forehead that I'm a terrorist
Seriously.
And then, as I looked into the sunflower field and not into my phone, which cannot transfer me into the magical land of the internet, refreshing facebook, finding inside joke humor on youtube, or any other way to outsource my ability to enjoy life, I remembered the fear I had earlier when I traveled to Outward Bound on my own, and the accomplishment when I navigated successfully based off of
1. Early preparation
2. Timely departure
3. Genuine determination to understand geography
And so today, I added a fourth category
4. Usage of skills learned relevant to living
And as a result, I used the Kiswahili I've been study and asked several people
"Ningetaka kuenda sokoni" I'd like to go the market. Because the market was near my house and a common landmark, I used the skills I learned here to travel through.
So yes, I'm still scared of being lost, but that shouldn't stop me from understanding things for myself so I can get stronger.
I became an RA so that I can help people who are in the worst of situations around me (suicide, alcohol poisoning, victims of violence) because I was afraid I'd be useless to help those I cared about. I became fire fighter because I was afraid that I couldn't even perform basic tasks (tie a knot, carry someone to safety, throw a ladder), and now I'm a volunteer so I can conquer my fear of being on my own in a different country in the most basic of living situations.
We are afraid of the things we believe we are incapable of handling, but that's okay, because with time and the agency to want to succeed, we eventually will fear them less. We just have to go all the way.
Sometimes technology helps greatly, and sometimes it helps so much that it doesn't actual help us grow from our fear. But technology won't always be with us, believe me, one day we'll find ourselves alone with that knot inside our heart, and the only thing we have is our own ability to say repeatedly, "it'll be okay" and move on through.
So that is why, fear ends halfway at fearless.
Because it's a journey my friends, one that makes us grow muscles in our feet as much as it makes us deal with the blisters.
How the heck am I going to navigate without Googlemap?
I looked into the field and for a split second remembered with glorious dedicated detail of every time I've been late to work, meeting friends, or just too lazy to figure out an actual map and how I just plugged in the address into my smartphone (when its memory wasn't full with pictures of flowers and brownies) and just went out (and still ended up getting lost because I can't tell my north from south according to the sun).
One of my biggest fears I've stated before was getting lost in Kenya, and still is. I don't want to stumble into a different town in transit to some other place, step into the wrong matatu and just...
...wait what? What's the worse that can happen? That I get lost and get robbed or murdered? I find that highly unlikely because
1. I would have to deliberately travel at night
2. Not be prepared enough to keep emergency money in reserve
3. Tattoo on my forehead that I'm a terrorist
Seriously.
And then, as I looked into the sunflower field and not into my phone, which cannot transfer me into the magical land of the internet, refreshing facebook, finding inside joke humor on youtube, or any other way to outsource my ability to enjoy life, I remembered the fear I had earlier when I traveled to Outward Bound on my own, and the accomplishment when I navigated successfully based off of
1. Early preparation
2. Timely departure
3. Genuine determination to understand geography
And so today, I added a fourth category
4. Usage of skills learned relevant to living
And as a result, I used the Kiswahili I've been study and asked several people
"Ningetaka kuenda sokoni" I'd like to go the market. Because the market was near my house and a common landmark, I used the skills I learned here to travel through.
So yes, I'm still scared of being lost, but that shouldn't stop me from understanding things for myself so I can get stronger.
I became an RA so that I can help people who are in the worst of situations around me (suicide, alcohol poisoning, victims of violence) because I was afraid I'd be useless to help those I cared about. I became fire fighter because I was afraid that I couldn't even perform basic tasks (tie a knot, carry someone to safety, throw a ladder), and now I'm a volunteer so I can conquer my fear of being on my own in a different country in the most basic of living situations.
We are afraid of the things we believe we are incapable of handling, but that's okay, because with time and the agency to want to succeed, we eventually will fear them less. We just have to go all the way.
Sometimes technology helps greatly, and sometimes it helps so much that it doesn't actual help us grow from our fear. But technology won't always be with us, believe me, one day we'll find ourselves alone with that knot inside our heart, and the only thing we have is our own ability to say repeatedly, "it'll be okay" and move on through.
So that is why, fear ends halfway at fearless.
Because it's a journey my friends, one that makes us grow muscles in our feet as much as it makes us deal with the blisters.
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