I have always been afraid of cows. Littering the air with its cadenced breath, a cow’s shadow swallows the world that lies below. Suspended by the ubiquitous credulity of a fragile girl, this fear commands its authority over the wide-eyed innocence of my youth. While I remain the sole witness to a cow’s vehement aggression, I can at least promise the reader a riveting tale of valor, wit, and the awkward ventures of a misguided early adolescence.

One of my earliest memories involves getting knocked over by a calf. Although many people either snicker or think of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, this story’s truth equates its abundant peculiarities. The fate to which I fell marks a prominent turning point in my life. Clad in the bright yellow cotton of naivety, a child of merely three years faded, succumbing to the harshness of reality.

Catching the tears but not the heavy heart, this irrational fear of cows perpetuates the barrier between innocence and the heartaches of reality. Through grazing on the misconceptions of the era, cows embody the problems, dilemmas, and insecurities that enfeeble civilization, preventing further development. I find no fear in the cow; instead, I fear life’s unyielding kick in the butt. I fear the scars to be sustained. I fear the pain to be inflicted. I fear the loss of pride and the deterioration of self-sufficiency. I fear that I may never recover.
In writing this personal narrative, I analyze the unreasonable terrors that weave in and out of humanity’s infrastructure. With the tendency to antagonize the harmless, I evaluate society’s shared fears of clowns, grasshoppers and feet, in addition to my own phobia. Why do I cower at the sight of a petting zoo, yet manage to maintain my footing while hiking life’s tedious climb?
The stigma of failure facilitates the irrational fears of my generation. Perceived as a blemish rather than a blessing, failure isolates the few people that are willing to admit it exists. As a mechanism for survival, an individual’s s fear of failure protects them from getting hurt, since they lack the audacity to fulfill their dreams and the courage to acknowledge their mistakes. Although this cowardice guarantees one’s safety, it also inhibits their growth.
Upon that fateful morning, when I collapsed from the vulnerabilities of my youth, I miraculously regained my footing, preparing for the cow’s second inevitable kick. After pushing me down three consecutive times, the cow finally realized that I was too obstinate to back down. Life will always knock me over, but I refuse to submit to its malice. I refuse to yield to the outcomes of my blunders. I refuse to become a victim of the insecurities brought upon by others. I refuse surrender my dreams and abandon my character. Trading the qualms of today for the scars of tomorrow, I blaze on, ready to take the world by storm.