The Number One Reason Why You Should Challenge Yourself

Follow Your Fear

When I hear people say: ‘In my life, I love challenges’, I feel bad, like someone who is easily satisfied with anything the world offers. After all, I don’t need too much money to survive, I am not so ambitious, or competitive. I like my regular life. Yet, if I think about it, I can recall a time when I challenged myself. It was when I decided to go to Panama on my own.

Is there a place in your imagination that makes you think: one day I want to go there? What will my feelings be once I am there? Will it be better than I expect?

To me that secret place was the Panama Canal. It is on the other side of the world for a person living in Italy. At that time, they used to say Panama was a dangerous country, not a place for a young girl travelling alone. Here came the big challenge, I had to go.

On the day of the departure I was so anxious that I dressed up like a person who is going to a special event, and when the plane landed in Panama the customs agents stopped me for a body check: maybe they thought I was dangerously concealing some expensive content in my carry on. I was afraid of them, and they were afraid of me.

Then I started looking for a hotel, and I remember that I booked a room in cheap one, went to my room, realized that the door could be easily opened from the outside even if I put a chair against it, which I did, so I took my bag, went downstairs, and said I had to leave.

To feel safer, I had to book a room in an expensive hotel. The city was full of tourists, so it didn’t really seem so dangerous, but being a young woman alone I felt uncomfortable. There I realized I am always afraid of something, and now I know this is a part of my personality that I don’t like and that I am trying to change.

One day I took a bus to reach the canal. I expected to go on a bus full of dogs or chickens, and with people sitting on the top floor, but it was not like that. It was an ordinary bus, like those you see every day in Italy. So I realized I had prejudices, and I needed to work on them. I finally visited the canal, and the museum, I took pictures, I did it all. After a few days I left Panama and got back home.

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