Six Word Memoir -- Don't Let Your Fears Stop You

Don’t Let Your Fears Stop You

I remember a project I did in elementary school where we

had to present in front of the entire class. We got to choose what

our projects were, and I loved the idea of mine: it was something

I truly cared about and thought was important to address. I was

assigned to do so on a Monday, which I was not happy about --

as it was the first day back from break and the first day of presentations --

so I tried to get myself out of it. I have always been a nervous

person, and sometimes too nervous to do activities that are important

or matter to me. I didn’t want to present. I always get super anxious

when presenting a project in front of others, especially in front of

the whole class, so I was dreading that Monday, counting down the days miserably. I was eager to at least change the day. I already hated presenting in

front of others by itself, but on a Monday, right after a weekend? No

thanks. Having this mindset gave me enough confidence to push back

my presentation to a Tuesday or Wednesday. I talked to my teacher,

and he didn’t look too pleased and said, “You don’t have a choice on

what day you present on.”

Being the people pleaser I am, at the time I just nodded in
disappointment but went back to what I was doing. It was Wednesday,
five days before presenting. I understood, though, since we had been
working on the project for about a month and it was surely too late
to change days. So with that, I accepted defeat, or so I thought.

As the days slowly passed, it was Monday morning. My mom
urged me to get out of bed and prepare for school, but I had other plans.
I decided the night prior that I would fake being sick. It was easy for

me, I’d wrap a blanket over my head so it’d heat up. After ten minutes

of doing that in the morning, I took my temperature and the result

was high enough to be excused as a fever. I hadn’t really talked about

my project, so my mom was unaware of it, allowing me to stay home.

I knew I would have to present the next day, which I did, and it wasn’t

as nerve racking as I’d initially pictured. The moral of the story is to

not let your fears stop you from doing something you care about. Don’t

let your anxiety get in the way, keep moving forward. It may be scary,

but in the end you learn that you have to conquer your fears eventually.

It was a lesson that had to be learned, and I was lucky enough to have
learned it early in life.  

(note: I know that the way this is formatted/placed looks odd, the
original/accurate format kept glitching and wouldn't fit on the page,
sorry!)