Everyone has annoying habits that most of the time we don’t notice until someone points it out. Then your illusions shatter. You focus on it. I’m talking about that person next to you chewing loudly, that person who types on their keyboard as if it’s a typewriter, that sound of drilling and loud cars on the streets late at night while you’re trying to sleep. You see, there’s nothing wrong with them, but why does it annoy us and keep us from going on with our lives?

I used to love the water. Until I almost drowned in Khor Fakkan because I was trying to save my shoes as they were slipping off of my feet as I try to swim while the waves kept on crashing on me.

I used to love theme parks. G-force used to exhilarate me. Until I stopped going to theme parks and one day, I realised I don’t like heights or falling anymore.

Annoying habits and fears keep us from being productive and having fun.

In The Flinch by Julien Smith, he wrote, “Somewhere in the world, a lion wakes up every morning not knowing what it’s going to eat. Every day, it finds food. The lion isn’t worried—it just does what it needs to do. Somewhere else, in a zoo, a caged lion sits around every day and waits for a zookeeper. The lion is comfortable. It gets to relax. It’s not worried much, either. Both of these animals are lions. Only one is a king.”