How Amelia Earhart taught me to ignore self-doubt 11
Let me begin this story by making a confession. I am one of the many people all over the world that suffer from anxiety. My mistakes come back and haunt me. I lose sleep browsing my phone, looking at my friends’ social media ‘lives’ and how, in comparison, mine seem a little dull. Every waking moment is marked by a series of questions and fears. It’s a routine sadness. It will never disappear and I’ve come to accept that. It’s not a surrender, but an acknowledgement, backed by the words of Amelia Earhart.
Cheesy though it may sound, but Amelia’s words helped me through the rough patches. A couple of years back, I chanced upon an adapted version of one of her quotes. While I was uploading product entries in my first job (a dead-end one, if I may add), I read a comic which had this quote from the legendary pilot:
‘The most difficult decision is to act, the rest merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do; you can act to take charge and control your life. And the procedure, the process is its own reward.’
Along with Earhart’s quote was a comic strip of some kids playing basketball when the ball suddenly bounces off to a monster cave. While the rest of the kids concede, and accept the fact that the ball is forever lost, one girl — the protagonist of the comic — steps up and ventures inside the cave. When the girl makes it to the heart of the cave, she is greeted by a friendly creature who has filled a pit with all the basketballs that have bounced their way into the cave. The girl and the creature examine the pit and the girl returns to her friends, ball in tow.
That comic made me realise I didn’t want to toil away at my old job. Months later, empowered by Amelia’s words, I tendered my resignation. I ventured to chase my dream of being a writer and did so thanks to a mantra I’ve come to develop — reciting Amelia Earhart’s quote till my mind clears. It was due to her words that I did something I would not do otherwise.
Two years later, I again fell into a series of anxiety attacks. I remember one time clearly. It was an evening in October when my aunt passed away after a battle with cancer, my partner and I had broken up, I had been unemployed for over three months… it was all too much, the sleeplessness and the suffering. In my mind, I thought the play that is my life had reached its zenith and it was time for the finale. Yet, with the sanity I had left, Amelia came to me. She whispered in my ear the passage I read when I left my first job and decided to follow my dreams. In my dreams, I saw her flying in her red airplane, asking me to come with her and fly — fly towards where all the good things are — where peace is, where happiness lies. And that was what I did. The next day, after much waiting, I got into Khaleej Times. It had only been a couple of weeks since she made me decide to try my chances. In my head, I was just a fresh graduate (with barely any work experience), and KT, one of the biggest newspapers in town. While my mind told me that I was ‘unqualified’ and ‘undeserving,’ Amelia told me that ‘the fears are paper tigers.’ And they were.
What she said has made me soldier on, shutting out the voice in my head telling me I’m not good enough. But whenever I feel anxious and sad, I know that I can just look up to the sky and she’ll be there — flying her red Lockheed and telling me to never fear.