Letting Fear Be Part of the Journey

Jada Budhoo | Editor

Recently, I had an encounter with my uncle Darius Foster. We spoke about my last opinion piece on the PawPrint titled, “Embrace Who You Are: The Path to Your Bright Future”. The article is about embracing your true authentic self. I took the opportunity to read it out loud for Darius to provide constructive feedback. “What’s the perspective?” he says. I didn’t quite understand it at the time. Then, he informed me that including my personal experiences in my articles may strike a better connection with my audience. So, here goes nothing.

I am an editor for the school newspaper The Pawprint. As a reporter I was afraid to add my own perspective to my articles for the sake of reliability, even if the assignment was opinionated. However, when you think about it, isn’t anything that we perceive interpreted differently? Like, two people could have been in the same place at the same time, yet could have remembered something differently in their memory. Therefore, wouldn’t perception be considered an opinion to each person? I suppose that would be considered an opinion too.

I found myself wondering while writing articles if I should add a life lesson, but if there wasn’t one, I would feel like the message didn’t have meaning. Try not to let this doubt discourage your writing. Think of it like a race with a start and finish line. Most activities have a starting place where you gradually work your way up. This is good. It’s okay to fail as long as you don’t give up. I may be working on life lessons in my articles, but I say this as a friend to my readers. So, I’ll leave you with this.

Dear, Pawprint Readers

There are things that almost seem surreal, like the moments where you can go into fight or flight mode. Opportunities you may have missed, people that come and go, failing, falling, getting one-upped, discouraged, anxiety, sensitivity, wanting to cry, or being afraid. A plethora of emotions can come up in your day-to-day life. That’s ok. As long as you don’t give up, your strength can make you more powerful.