What would you do if you weren't afraid?

I should be studying for my upcoming test, but I did something today that I want to remember for a long time. I did something that scared me.

I wasn't going to write the poem, but I wrote it. I wasn't going to submit the poem. I submitted it. I didn't expect it to get noticed, but it got Honorable Mention. I was definitely not going to have my name associated with it, and wanted it published under "Anonymous." Then I was asked to read my poem at the awards ceremony with the other poetry and prose winners, and that was definitely not ever going to happen.

But today at 4pm, without telling anyone, I slipped off to the awards ceremony. I listened to the other amazing pieces. I got my picture taken with the certificate and with the other winners.

Then I read my poem. My highly personal poem. It is about a journey that I am on that I am not completely comfortable with, and sharing that with a room full of doctors, faculty, and second year medical students was honestly terrifying.

I love public speaking, I love the sound of my voice in a microphone, I get a little high when I look out into a crowd and I know people are listening to me. But today, my voice shook and my palms got sweaty. It was the genuine emotion I had been trying to convey for an entire semester in an acting class I took at Cornell.

There are not too many things in this world that scare me. There are certainly things that challenge me, and things I just think are dumb (skydiving, snake charming...), but rarely have I felt this visceral fear. I did not know how people would react to my poem. I did not know if they would understand me or where I was coming from or what I was even talking about. I was so scared of being judged.

It didn't occur to me until just now (and aha! that's why we write, isn't it?) that as I was listening to the other students and faculty members reading their poems and their prose--I did not judge them at all. I was only impressed, moved, humbled, made to think. They presented us with real human emotions, different points of view, snapshots into the lives of ordinary people who have extraordinary humanity.

And when I finished reading my own poem, the sheet shaking in my hands, I looked up to the whole room clapping. And when the event was over and we mingled over cake, all the fellow writers came up to me, and so did some audience members, to say how they thought my poem was very powerful or moving or brave.

I didn't feel brave, but now I do. I am so proud of myself for doing something that scares me, and I hope I do it again soon. And to anyone reading this, the question I pose to you: "What would you do if you weren't afraid?"