There is no way fear can do the job like courage
I watched my younger sister pick at her noodles. I didn't want to ask what was on her mind because I knew Princess, she would tell me eventually. I reached towards her plate of food, my fingers heading directly for the chicken. They had barely touched the plate when I felt a sharp pain pierce my skin. She smacked my arm.
Source
“I thought you were sulking”
She turned her lips downward and flicked her lashes at me.
“I don't know what to do” She tore at the chicken skin and finally folded it into her mouth, chewing gingerly. The spicy taste of the chicken had stung my tongue when I ate it too so I wasn't surprised when she screwed her face up.
“I didn't know the seasoning was too much…” My sudden burst of laughter made her stoop to pick up her flip-flop and throw it at me. I ducked, rising immediately to run outside as the flip-flop missed me by a few inches.
“Learn to cook properly,” I told her as I returned to the house. We sat quietly trying to eat the pieces of spicy chicken sitting on our plates.
“What's wrong?” She looked up at me and humphed, sliding the plate of chicken away from herself in frustration.
“I don't know what to do about my baking stuff. Everyone wants me to go to school to study something else but I really want to bake. The only challenge is that baking has its seasons. What happens when I don't have jobs?”
I studied her face to read her every expression; the way her brows creased and her lips folded. I knew that those thoughts were not from her.
“Who has brainwashed you?”
She looked at me with a startled expression, I took the plate of chicken and headed for the trash can, escorting the chicken into it with my fork.
“You have always been a craftswoman, someone who loved playing with dough and butter, ever since your childhood. The best thing you can do for yourself is to work on that path and just keep getting better. Which one is baking is seasonal again….?”
“But it is!” She rose now, taking a bottle of water and gulping it down before resuming her argument, “You don't get customers until there's an event going on, birthdays, valentines, weddings, what happens if there are no events?”
I sighed wearily and asked her to sit.
“Princess, What have you always wanted to do?”
I could see her brows furrow familiarly, when she looked up at me, there was the familiar expression I looked out for the first time, that look of confidence, the look that suggested she was speaking her own thoughts.
“I want to bake. To own my own baking academy where I can teach young girls, the way I too was taught how to bake. I want to be known as a good baker around the country and be booked for jobs that would make me travel far and wide”
“So what is stopping you?”
She took some time to think about it again, running her tongue around her teeth.
“I don't know. I just feel like I might make a mistake”
“You see Princess,” I began, “There is no way fear can do the job like courage. If you must do something in life, especially something you love, then you must first arrest the fear factor else either of two things will happen….”
“You may procrastinate doing that thing which will make you never do it, or you will never do it at all” she completed. I smiled, it was something my father said to us all the time.
“I know that you have to get a degree, but don't stifle your baking for 7 years because your parents want you to study medicine. I don't know if you can be a baker successfully while studying medicine but if you can't, then, you would be giving up so much time to chase something you do not love..”
She released the breath she had been holding deeply and rose.
“But you know how your parents are…”
I had to cut her short, “It is your life, Princess, Not theirs. If anything goes wrong, you alone are to be blamed. Not just in your career, but in all facets of your life. Receive counsel from others as most of it embodies wisdom but have a mind of your own too, as it will assist you to greatness”
I saw her face relax into a smile again, the last part of the sentence was also one of my father's quotes. She mouthed “Thank you” as I helped myself onto the bed, I winked at her in response knowing that she was smart and would make the right decision.