What is it that is stopping you from being courageous ?

What is it that is stopping you from finding your passion ?

Is it an external excuse ? Your spouse? Your parents ? Your social image ? Really ?

Or is it internal ?

Hi there

Fatma here .

I would like to share a small story with you , see if you can relate .

Since I was little girl I feared consequences of bad behaviour. I was always a good girl a good sister a good pupil ..etc . Never an attention seeker , always in the shadow doing as I am told, my biggest reward was to not get punished .

I had dreams of becoming the president back in my home country, i had plans and strategies on how to make the world a better place for us humans. Better roads, better schools, better hospitals ..etc. but I was always too shy to share those dreams with anyone, not even with my closest friend or my sister. I always just put my head down and did as told.

Parents planning every little detail of my life and pushing me hard in school to get the highest of grades but when it was time to stary to university I was told sorry too expensiv, they can't afford it . So me being the non trouble maker, the chicken, the coward I just gave in. By the way 2 years later my sister went into medical school and two brothers went to do engineering. My father has sold some assets to fund for them.

I gave up on my dreams . Never fought for what I thought I desereved, did I not think I deserve them? I always trustedother people' s opion in me . Especially the negative ones. Since I left my education my self esteem went very low. I believed that everything going wrong in my life was my fault although I was never the decision maker. I just thought I was jinksed. I got married and guess what ? My Husband joined the club of those blaming me when things go wrong and saying i am not good at anything . I will not succeed at anything. I became a stay at home mum, everyone around me always undervalued me. Or maybe i undervalued myself.

Three years ago I decided I should get a driver' s licence, my family was growing ( I have 4 children ) raising by myself, husband working abroad, just had a baby, just couldnt keep it on the foot all the time. Husband was firsto reject ( too expensive, waste of money, you will not pass . Cant do it ..blah blah ). I felt very scared , I was going to be in trouble. Husband was threatining to leave and file divorce papers ( not exaggerating ) But I was desperate. By the time I reach any destination baby would start crying. The winter is too cold for him to be in the pram.. So I insisted, for my children I had enough of them getting sick because they reach school or their clubs soaking wet. To my surprise I passed my exam a year later ( i will not say how many times I had to take the exam ). Believe it or not my husband bought me my first car.

This was big for me . I know I know some people get their driving licence at the age of 17, me getting it at the age of thirty is nothing to be proud of . But I am proud. It was a turning point for me, I realised first i can have more and add more to my life without loosing anything ( husband wanted to leave then was so happy he bought me the car) secondly the reason I was in the shadow was not because of my parents or my husband or time restrictions or whatever. The deamon was in my head. I was in the way of me reaching my dreams . I had to unleash myself and let go of all my fears, you know why because i believec i was worth the money and time spent on giving my life more quality . Your dreams and passion are yours. Do not allow others to steal them from you, you might share them with others , but never give up on them to please others.

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