Fear.

We are raised to believe that failure is unacceptable and are bred to crave success.

We have become slaves to a society that emphasizes success so much, that those who venture to flirt with failure are ostracized. Yet in reality, facing failure is truly the only thing that can propel us forward. If we remain complacent and content where we are, never truly moving forward, but also aren't quite moving backwards, because we end up settling out of fear. We keep our desires and whims at bay for fear that we will fail and not be able to fully fulfill what we crave most, and instead of truly living, we just simply exist.

We are told to make mistakes in college, yet again and again I've not allowed myself to be put in situations that could ever possibly result in failure. I've slowly built an innate fear of making mistakes, and in return I've missed out on little life experiences. While fear allows us to determine which situations are too dangerous, it can also dictate every little decision and paralyze spontaneity. It wasn't until I neared the end of my freshman year that I realized just how many life experiences I had lost by remaining complacent. I was so afraid to make a fool of myself that I had allowed fear to creep into every crevice of my life—big and small. I didn't want to explore another major, out of fear I would actually end up changing it. I didn't allow myself to form relationships with genuinely great guys out of fear that something would go wrong. I didn't allow myself to go out to ice cream with my friends as much as I wanted to out of fear of gaining the freshman 15 (one of my bigger regrets, honestly).

But making mistakes is one of the only ways we can truly grow as people, let alone learn some sort of lesson. I've found that one of the only things truly holding me back from living life to its fullest is me and my fear of failure. I've begun allowing myself to be placed in situations beyond the cusp my comfort zone that could result in extreme failure and embarrassment, but could also bring about tales of triumph. The greatest mistakes sometimes make for the greatest stories and memories.

I've realized I need to stop putting myself at a disadvantage by simply watching my life unfold in front of me. We each deserve to be characters intertwined within every single morsel of the plot that serves as our history. We deserve to, someday, reminisce and tell our children humorous tales of humiliation. We deserve to live a life brimming with fulfillment and the taste of adventure. We deserve to never allow fear to decide our fate.