Americans and some other European countries believe that one of the most difficult things to do is public speaking and public appearance. They arrange challenges and create opportunities for common people to come forward and talk, sing or perform their skills in public during some local football matches or other events.
Why is it so, if we think rationally most of us have the same problem, public fright and stage fright. Some of us even would even hang ourselves than to do a public performance. Yes it literally kills them, why?
We are afraid. Yes we are afraid; of what??
Let me tell you all a story, I had a neighbour (yes had, sadly, she passed away 2 weeks before) a housewife, who lead a happy yet silent life. One thing about her was she hardly left the premises of her home. Yes, till the age she died, 86, it would count only to a total below 20 times. Unbelievable, believe it. She never went out for shopping or for films. Her husband and the family made available all that she needed, the groceries and all inside her home. So she never ever needed to go out and it was also a custom and tradition in those days that Hindu Nair women hardly went out of their homes. The times she went were only for some temple festival or any close relatives marriage and those were so limited.
The point I wanted to make was that by the time she was 30+ she forgot how to walk in the streets, outside her home. It would be a strange thing to read but its true. She actually forgot how to walk outside her home. You may be thinking is walking on streets that much a BIG thing, I would say yes and you will also join me if you ever had seen her shivering when she is brought out of her home. Yes the thought of leaving her home and walking outside would literally kill her. She would not dare to do it and if she did she would start shivering and faint. If she had to go somewhere she would go by car, step out from her house straight to car and step in straight to the auditorium. She never dated to walk anymore or she always wanted someone beside her, holding her if she had to. Unbelievable but believe it.
So now you see those very simple things that we consider silly and simple become very difficult and would sometimes literally kill us to get it done. Strange but truth. Everything we do is an art – walking, talking, listening, sitting, smiling everything and everything. The more we do and try to learn those little tricks that get it done correctly it get perfected. If we don’t do things and refrain ourselves in doing things, we simply forget those things that we think we know like the back of our hands.
Let me tell you another incident
It was my friend’s sister’s marriage the day after and we all friends gathered at the wedding hall for arranging for the next days event. We were talking casually about bikes and cars discussing about our friend’s bike and its performance. One of my friend’s relative joined us; he was a tall built man who was in his early 50’s he asked whether he could have a small ride on that bike in the hall premises. He indeed loved bikes, we all sensed it from his talking and the knowledge he had about vintage bikes. My friend gladly gave his key. This man went to the bike sat on it looked for the keyhole and started the bike. But he never drove it. He was sitting there and doing nothing, we all looked at him and we saw him shivering and he was sweating like hell. We smelled trouble and ran to him and just as we got there he fainted and dropped down. Before dropping to ground we caught him and slowly carried him and laid him down. We all were scared and didn’t know what happened. He was taken to hospital, but thankfully he was fine. Doctors diagnosed and said he was quite ok.
I became curious about the man and enquired about him to my friend. And he told me his story, the man, was a bike-lover, a race freak and owned a very good bike. He once had a big accident and surprisingly recovered from it without much harmful injuries, but with a broken leg and hand. From then his wife denied him to ride bikes and in love he accepted it. Later on he himself adjusted to it. His son drove the bike and he sat behind. And years later it was on the other day that he ever again got into a bike. But my friend also didn’t know what happened to him after.
Actually what happened the man had a deep longing to ride bikes and the realisation that he was sitting on a brand new bike with high performances and his memories all got him into an adrenalin rush. But the moment he started the bike he realised and his mind told him that he had never touched a bike for last 8 years. This frightened him; suddenly he forgot how to drive the bike. The thing he did for around 20 years and the man who was a racing freak suddenly forgot how to drive the bike. His pressure was building up, he got tensed, his heart was pumping rapidly and was demanding more oxygen but he had forgot everything and even to breath properly. His eyes went blank his brain stopped working and he fainted.
Imagine this is the real life incident of a person who was a racing freak and who knew everything about bikes and handled it like an extension of his body. This can happen to you or me. This happened because of lack of practice and lack of confidence out of that.
Have you ever had those feelings of, oh no I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to ask that. Have you ever come across a situation of conversation starting trouble? In a class or in a public venue do you remember hiding yourself from the person on stage or our teacher when he asks for a volunteer?
This happens out of lack of practice and lack of confidence out of that.
Only practice builds confidence. When we do something, we learn things and our mind stores it. This is knowledge; we use this knowledge in later stages wherever it comes into use. This builds confidence. And every time we do the thing we learn more and gets on better all the time.
So the lesson is simple, do the thing you fear the most and the fear vanishes, refrain yourself and you are in the prison forever.
Quite often we refrain ourselves from asking doubts to our teachers or even asking to the person information counter and may I help you counters, who are indeed there to help you. We find it difficult to ask, Why?
This is simply because we fear mockery and false-ego.
We fear asking doubts to others, fear that whether they would tease us of our ignorance. And in some other cases our false ego wont let us ask. I have heard some people telling that they would rather die than to ask a doubt or clarification to someone. But in the end who loses?
I have heard people talking, ”I don’t need to know that, its not my discipline or its not my subject or business”. This is an attitude most of the people put up the tag in their minds with. But this is just ridiculous, they are just refraining themselves from the knowledge flow. Everything is knowledge and there is no good or bad or something that is for me or something that’s not me. Try to know and learn everything or something of everything. Don’t put yourself in the prison when the door is so wide open.
Try and become Jack of all and Ace of none. This helps in the long run. Sticking to one job is good and specialisation is also good, but this makes people monotonous and boring. Theses people always see only one side of the fact and think with only the concept that applies in their field. This thought makes them partially blind. They never get to see the other side of the picture. Such people usually stand firmly with their concepts and without compromises to learn something new and understand new concept ultimately fails themselves. They are in the prison built by them. Neglecting knowledge and blinding themselves from new concepts is the worst thing and the most foolish thing that can happen to a man. He will never go forward but keep on turning around and around in a loop within his own self-created prison.
Break the prison, open your mind, free your mind, and let your mind wander. Go places you have never gone before, experience things you have never experienced before, do things you have never done before.
People may call you a freak, show them what you experience, stand on it and they will follow you. That’s people; they are afraid, they just need someone to show the path to be a leader for them, to take responsibilities for them. Show the world what you got within you.
Stand erect, be bold. be brave and take responsibilities in your shoulders.
Let it be you - The ONE, the Chosen ONE.
