Your weekly poem: LIFE DOESN’T FRIGHTEN ME

🌿 Your weekly poem: Life doesn’t frighten me—or how to slay your dragons

With so many people on the market looking for a job or to reinvent their career, I’ve decided to start relating my weekly poems to the topic of career transitions; hoping that some of you can find inspiration and solace in them as you journey on.

🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away…

LIFE DOESN’T FRIGHTEN ME by Maya Angelou 🌿

🌻 Life Doesn’t Frighten Me
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don’t frighten me at all

Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn’t frighten me at all.

I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won’t cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild

Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Tough guys fight
All alone at night
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don’t frighten me at all.

That new classroom where
Boys all pull my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don’t frighten me at all.

Don’t show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I’m afraid at all
It’s only in my dreams.

I’ve got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all. 🌻

— Maya Angelou, 1993

🪴 Maya takes the voice of a child, inviting a light-hearted tone to a serious subject: fear.

There are two ways to read this poem:

1) As a children’s poem, meant to give heart to our children and help them deal with their imaginary and not-so-imaginary fears. In fact, the poem was published as a picture book, illustrated by Jean-Michel Basquiat (link in comments 👇🏽). Although, to be honest, I find Basquiat’s illustrations so unsettling, I’m not sure the book was truly ever meant for children…

2) As a poem for all ages, whereby each stanza is a metaphor for us to explore.

Today, I’d like to offer you one possible way to explore this poem from the perspective of someone in the midst of a job search or career transition, hoping it can offer you solace, and maybe even some courage to journey on.

Angelou starts by listing some of the things she (or her inner child) fears:

🌱 Shadows on the wall. Big ghosts in a cloud.

I interpret these as the shadows and ghosts of our own heart:

• Our own self-doubts.
• The parts of ourselves we’ve rejected or hidden, for fear we may no longer be accepted or loved.
• Those hopes and dreams we used to carry on our sleeves and that are now relegated to a back pocket at best, if not written on the wall of a deep, dark well even we have forgotten how to access.

🌱 Noises down the hall. Bad dogs barking loud.

The noises barking loud in our heads. Those incessant what-ifs that trickle down our mind, one drop at a time, like a broken tap that won’t shut off…

• What if I never find another job?
• What if every rejection letter is a third-party confirmation of my lack of worth?
• What if my skills are obsolete?
• What if my partner no longer wants to be with me?
• What if my kids no longer respect me being jobless for so long?

And yet, even then, Angelou reassures us: Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

No explanation yet as to why, she keeps going…

🌱 Mean old Mother Goose. Lions on the loose. Dragons breathing flame. Panthers in the park. Strangers in the dark. Boys all pull my hair. Show me frogs and snakes and listen for my scream.

Each one of those could represent a particular challenge when searching for a new job or seeking a new career:

• The job search that feels like looking for a needle in a haystack, only to have LinkedIn point out 100+ people have applied two days after publication.
• The application processes that took hours to fill out—only to be ghosted at the end.
• The time and energy spent preparing for an interview, a business case, a case study—only to be told the position has been cancelled, a hiring freeze is now in effect, or an internal candidate has “miraculously” been found.
• The unbearable silence after you thought you really clicked with that manager and team.
• The standard rejection letter that might as well have read “not interested for not good enough”.
• The flowery rhetoric of “we hire for potential” and “transferrable skills”—only to find out they hired someone who’s been doing the job for the past 12 years.
• The predators who publish fake jobs just to harvest your data.
• The so-called “career experts” who probably never recruited or worked in HR a day in their life, but are more than happy to share false information—feeding on your fears to fill their pockets.
• And… and… and…

So, understandably, you might start losing hope, taking rejections personally, doubting yourself, your skills, your worth. And yet, Angelou continues to claim:

Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

 She still does not yet reveal why she isn’t frightened, but she does reveal some of her strategies for handling fear:

🌱 I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won’t cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild

She calls their bluff.
She uses humour.
She doesn’t let them get to her.
She brushes things off.

Each one of these strategies is also available to you. Only you hold the power of your mind and your imagination.

And then she finally reveals to us WHY she isn’t afraid:

🌱 I’ve got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.

Now, you might say: “But I have no magic charm”. You do!

You are not your role, and your self-worth is not dependent on your job title or the company you worked for.

No one can strip you of your skills, knowledge, experience, talents, and know-how.
No one can strip you of your personality, your quirks, and your unique way of being in the world.
No one can strip you of your imagination, your ability to learn, and to bounce back.

Your magic charm is your inner strength and your personal source of courage.

The spirit is indomitable.

Your spirit is indomitable.

📌 So, here’s a question for you: what, or who, is your source of courage?

Maybe it’s a personal or spiritual belief.
Maybe it’s religion.
Maybe it’s a community you belong to.
Maybe it’s a person or persons who care about you deeply.

Whatever your source of courage, now is the time to reach out!

The stories we tell ourselves matter. They can build us up, or pull us down. And when they pull down, you can either find the strength within you to dust yourself off and get up again. Or you ask for help.

Foolishness is refusing to ask for help out of pride, or a false sense of shame or guilt.

Courage is saying:

I am willing to risk ridicule and failure so that I may experience this day with newness and freshness — Zinker, J., Creative Process in Gestalt Therapy, 1978, p. 3.

As for that ocean—

Maybe Angelou did not need to breathe because she mastered the skill of apnea diving. Or maybe she had a tank full of oxygen ready to use. Whatever the reason, she is steadfast and confident that “she can walk that ocean floor”, and so can you!

The ocean might be deep, dark, and full of unknowns. But you’ve survived it before, and you can trust that you will again. And even if this is your first time diving in deep seas, know that many have survived it before you.

You can face the ocean with a defeatist mind: blaming others, victimising yourself, finding fault in every path or possibility, telling yourself it’s never been done before, or that you’ve been told it’s impossible. Or you can keep trying, experimenting, collecting data, and casting nets.

Manage what you can control and let go of what you can’t, trusting that you are part of a much wider field, where other forces are at play.

You are not alone. And as long as you hold on to the belief that things are in motion beyond what you can see, and that every net you cast holds possibility—the timing of what comes to fruition is no longer yours to control alone—and there is great solace in that.

Man is no island. Mankind is a highly sophisticated root system—a Soul Wide Web of sorts: interconnected, interdependent, woven like a tapestry.

🪴 Good luck with your job search or career transition! And if you want to cast a net my way, feel free to do so. I’m happy to support where I can.

🦋 Happy Weekend everyone! 🦋

With love,
Dina 🫶🏽

Resources:

• Check out Angelou’s poem as a picture book on Amazon.
• This week’s song is NOT AFRIAD, cover by Red Village (EXPLICIT version):