By Alishba Shahid
Somewhere in the grand tapestry of existence, a lone star hangs in the cosmos.
It is still. Timeless. Elysian. It illuminates a radiance so overwhelmingly beautiful, you begin to wonder, ‘how’? Gravity pulls at it relentlessly, forcing it inwards, threatening total and utter collapse. The weight of its own existence presses heavy against its core—that is, until, something phenomenal occurs. Under unimaginable and encompassing heat and pressure, tiny fragments of matter collide and merge. The energy released dares to challenge gravity itself.
The star survives by turning pressure into light. And so, it burns.
It is in human nature to run away when things get hard. The weight of expectations, uncertainties and hardships is one that everyone carries in different forms. Too often, we allow this weight to consume us, shape us and take over. We fear failure, fear disappointment, fear a possibility in which we collapse under the pressure, a road to darkness.
The funny thing is, light cannot exist without darkness. Just as success cannot exist without failure. There is a peculiar habit that we humans are prone to—in the face of a challenge, we decide the outcome before even taking a step forward, because we cannot possibly accept a world in which we fail.
’I can’t do it, it’s too hard’; such mundane words, yet the tragedy of them is not that they are always true. More often, is that they become true. They plant seeds of doubt, and doubt, as Psyche learned, can unravel even the most miraculous of journeys. They become self-fulfilling prophecies, in that the fear of fate will lead you to directly into its arms.
To say that something is impossible is to create an invisible wall between you and your dream being realized—sometimes, you become the victim of your own doubts. You must then, instead, accept the possibility of failure as it is, and embrace it, for regardless of your fears, it will always exist, and always be necessary for you to succeed.
A simple change in mindset is all it takes.
The lone star spends its entire existence beneath crushing pressure. In another world, it surrenders before nuclear fusion even has the chance to begin—in that world, the lone star does not burn, and therefore does not shine.
To be a star, you must burn.