The Fear of Being Great

Is it possible that we fear becoming great?

In her book, A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson said that “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?'’ This prompts me to ask, actually, who are you not to be?

Our society is striving harder and harder to achieve success and avoid failure. We have become so addicted to “success” that we neglect what truly makes our lives meaningful and great. But, what is it then, if not success, that makes our life great? ... I believe that it is realizing our potential, regardless of commonplace definitions of success.

We are not afraid of failure because we lack the talents or don’t have the skills to build a great and meaningful future based on our potential. Rather, we are afraid of failure because the pressure to achieve standard definitions of success forces us to behave in a way that is acceptable to others, and not necessarily to us. How many frustrated painters, architects, designers, dancers or musicians are out there? How many of them ended up studying or working in fields that they either dislike or were not connected to? How many of them are part of the great majority of workers who are disengaged?

Many years ago I met a very bright woman. She had the dream of becoming a biologist, and then geneticist. However, that was not the standard in her family. She was part of a line of engineers. Her parents didn’t let her become what she wanted to become. Instead, they wanted her to be a reflection of their own definitions of success.  They forced her to be an engineer.

Years later she switched careers in order to pursue her dream and her potential. But if she had continued on the imposed path, it could’ve been a successful life, as she is very bright. Yet, probably it wasn’t going to meaningful or great to her.

Our potential is the basic unit of our own happiness. That is why there is no definition of happiness, but only proxy approaches. Nobody can define happiness in a unique way! Whatever it means to you, might be different for me. Thus, we can approach happiness as the realization of our potential. Some researchers think of happiness as well-being, or life satisfaction. However, sometimes realizing our potential is painful and requires a lot of sacrifices, which are not feelings that we usually relate to happiness

Nobody would think that Nelson Mandela was satisfied spending 27 years in jail, or that Martin Luther King enjoyed getting beaten over and over again. Yet, they lived exemplary lives, they sacrificed a lot and their path was very painful. But their happiness didn’t rest on their personal well-being, but rather on the realization of their potential. And that potential was the struggle for the civil rights of millions.

This is how Martin Luther King Jr. defined his own happiness. “Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”. As we can see, seeking happiness and having a meaningful and great life was a matter of realizing his potential. It was not a matter of personal success, but service to others.

How about us, when we look back at our lives 20 or 30 years from now? Do we want to be truly happy knowing that we lived meaningful lives, or frustrated because we never created the opportunities to fully develop our talents, capacities and potential?

Our happiness mustn’t lie in being rich, famous or just living in material satisfactions. If we are not able to realize our potential, it is very likely that we will live empty lives. We might live very successful lives, but they might be empty at the end of the day.

We have to free ourselves from the cruelty of fear. And the only way to do that is by acknowledging and accepting the person who we really want to become. We have to leave behind the preconceptions and assumptions that we have about the world. And we must live our life knowing that it is ours alone.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela

Follow me on Twitter: @erubio_p
Visit my blog: www.innovationdev.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique is passionate about leadership, business and social entrepreneurship, curiosity, creativity and innovation. He is a blogger and podcaster, and also a competitive ultrarunner. Visit the blog: Innovation for Development and Podcast. Click here to follow Enrique on Twitter. 

#leadership #bestadvice #innovation #organizational #development #engagement #motivation #learning #growth #creativity #whatinspiresme