Being courageous is to face your fears and come out on top. Everyone has a fear of something.  Flying, spiders, even heights, see I’m not scared of any of those ,what scares me the most is the fear of failing. Yes it might be a stupid fear, but I haven’t been good at school, I’ve failed more tests then I can remember and that’s possibly how I formed this fear.

 

The fear of failing is what haunts me every daythat I wake up and go to school. I walk in the those doors every day and go to class, but I go in with a fear of failing everything I have to do that day.  The fact that I’m a perfectionist and want everything to be perfect and to the best of my ability makes it really hard to get over this fear. It’s like its one big nightmare that I can't wake up from. I try and try to succeed; I put myself out there every chance I get to maybe accomplish something and raise my confidence, but I just start thinking negative thoughts: “How will I even pass this..I fail at everything else.” Maybe that’s another reason i'm drowning in this sea of fear I've made myself.

 

My girlfriend says “Austin you're too hard on yourself” and maybe I am..but isn't it good to push yourself and strive for greatness?  The problem there is that my negative thoughts getsin the way of that and I end up failing once again. Just once in life I wish I accomplished something great..something that not only made my self proud, but actually made my parents proud. This is where courage comes in I'm currently trying to get accepted into a year long exchange to a foreign country to learn the culture and language.  I'm putting myself out there and trying my hardest to keep positive and telling myself I can do this.  I will overcome this silly fear.  I will conquer it and then the adventure can start.

By Austin LaMontagne