I FREEZE UNDER
THE SPOTLIGHT
The
slightest thought of public speaking can bring an overwhelming fear to most
people. It can cause someone to shake, sweat, and sometimes even have
palpitations when it’s mentioned. It is true; I literally ice over when
everybody else is staring at me. My muscles tense up, I start panting and I
cannot move, speak, or do anything. In
addition, as my parents know that I have this fear, they always encourage me to
do activities related to performing, like debating, narrating for plays
etcetera and that really incenses me!
I think I fear this because I really
do not like being the centre of attention. I am 200% positive that I am not the
only one in the approximate 6 billion people in the earth that feels this way.
For example, my friend Shaunak really dislikes performing in front of
audiences. Many people might not
identify that flaw as soon as they meet me, but this is the way that I feel. An
instance of this is when the teacher asks me the answer to a question; the
whole class starts to look at me as if they are giving death stares. I find
that position awkward and uncomfortable.
The other
underlying fact about this fear is that I wonder what people will think of me
if I say or do the wrong thing. I am afraid that they will think that I am a
bad person when I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. I started thinking
like this when my family and I went to see a pantomime. The lead actor fumbled
up her lines and after the show, everybody including my parents was talking
about him. It soon became the local gossip.
I don’t
want to be an object of ridicule or be vulnerable to teasing so that is why I
avoid participating in things like public speaking. Maybe even if people do
their performances without a hitch, they still get teased by others based on
the fact that they went up on stage. Moreover, I don’t want that happening to
me.
In
conclusion, as I was writing this I myself discovered that I should get rid of
this fear and stand up to it. In other words, I have realized that I should get
used to being the centre of attention, ignore what people think, and try to
overcome this fear. So people who share the same phobia; don’t rate yourself on
what others think of you, rate yourself based on how you think of yourself.
Harrsha Kumar Pradeep
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