My niece, Lila, has always marched to her own beat. She’s the kind of kid who will turn a cardboard box into a spaceship, or spend hours filling notebooks with wild, bright doodles. So when she landed in the hospital—needles, wires, machines beeping everywhere—I was bracing for panic, or at least a meltdown.
But Lila surprised us all. The doctors came and went, asking questions, poking and prodding, and she barely seemed to notice. As long as she had a crayon in her hand and a fresh piece of paper, she was fine. She’d draw princesses in astronaut helmets, unicorns with stethoscopes, whole imaginary worlds blooming right there on her hospital bed.
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I asked her if she was scared. She looked up, shrugged, and said, “I just wanna finish my picture. Hospitals are boring but drawing isn’t.” That was it. No drama, no complaints—just this laser focus on what makes her happiest.
It honestly blew me away. Here I am, getting caught up in all the worry, letting anxiety eat at every spare moment, and she’s teaching me a whole different way to live. Lila doesn’t waste time on “what ifs.” She doesn’t let fear or pain get in the way of her passion, even for a second. She just keeps creating, even with IVs in her arm and doctors hovering in the background.
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I realized in that moment that there was something powerful about her approach. Lila didn’t just use her art as a way to escape her surroundings; she used it as a way to take control of them. While the hospital room was filled with the sterile smell of disinfectant and the constant beeping of machines, she had built a universe that belonged only to her, a place where she could draw and create without anyone telling her what to do.
It made me stop and think about how often I let fear rule my life. Fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of the unknown. How many times had I put off doing something I loved because I was afraid it wouldn’t turn out right, or that others wouldn’t approve? How many moments had I spent worrying about the future, instead of just living in the present, doing what brought me joy?
Lila, at just seven years old, was teaching me something I hadn’t been able to grasp in all my adult years: passion can overpower fear, if you let it. Passion doesn’t wait for the perfect moment, or for things to be easy. It simply takes what it can, wherever it can, and turns even the toughest situations into something meaningful.
The days in the hospital passed slowly, but Lila’s drawings became more intricate and colorful with each new one. I started bringing her new packs of crayons, and she would offer me a seat beside her bed, asking me to help color in the pictures when she got tired. We spent hours together, quietly filling the pages with vibrant colors, our laughter filling the sterile room.
One afternoon, a nurse came in to check on Lila and smiled when she saw the artwork scattered around the bed. “You’re quite the artist,” she said, inspecting one of the drawings. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Lila looked up at her, not missing a beat. “I want to be a space doctor,” she replied, her eyes bright. “I’m going to save the aliens and the princesses.”
The nurse chuckled, but Lila’s response stayed with me. Here she was, facing an unknown medical condition, in and out of tests and procedures, yet she was already dreaming of a future that didn’t involve fear, but rather, creativity and purpose. She wasn’t letting her current circumstances define her. She was imagining a world where she could do something meaningful, even if that world seemed as far away as another galaxy.
I started to realize that I had been letting my own fears hold me back for far too long. I had always wanted to write—a dream I’d held since childhood—but the fear of failure kept me from even starting. What if no one liked what I wrote? What if I wasn’t good enough? I had let those “what ifs” hold me back from following my passion.
But watching Lila, so determined and so full of life despite the challenges around her, I knew it was time for me to stop living in fear. I decided to finally take that first step. I pulled out my laptop and opened a blank document. For the first time in years, I didn’t care about the outcome. I just wrote. I wrote about everything I had been afraid of, all the things I had kept hidden in my mind, and I let the words flow.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even close to perfect. But it didn’t matter. I was doing it. I was creating. I was no longer letting fear hold me back from something I loved.
Weeks passed, and Lila continued to get better. The doctors were able to pinpoint what had caused her illness, and after some treatment, she was able to go home. The day she left the hospital, I took a deep breath and handed her a notebook. “Here,” I said, “You can keep drawing all the space princesses and unicorns you want.”
Lila smiled brightly, taking the notebook in her hands. “Thanks, Auntie,” she said. “And you should write stories about them. You’ll be really good at it.”
Her words hit me harder than I expected. She believed in me, more than I had believed in myself.
That night, when I got home, I opened my laptop again and started writing. I didn’t stop until the early hours of the morning, my fingers flying across the keys, telling stories I had never dared to tell before. It felt freeing, like I had been holding my breath for so long and had finally exhaled.
But the true twist came when I received an email a few weeks later. It was from a small publishing company that had come across a story I had written online. They wanted to know if I would be interested in publishing it. I stared at the screen, blinking in disbelief. My heart raced, and I felt a wave of emotions wash over me.
What was happening? Was this real? It felt surreal.
I thought back to Lila, her hospital bed surrounded by drawings of spaceships and alien princesses, her unwavering confidence, and her belief in me. She had shown me that no dream was too big and that passion could beat fear any day of the week.
In that moment, I knew that the path I was walking now was thanks to her. Her little spark had ignited something inside me that I didn’t know was there. She had taught me that it was never too late to pursue a dream, and that the only thing holding me back was my own hesitation.
I wrote back to the publisher, accepting their offer, and from that day on, I became a writer. It wasn’t always easy. There were plenty of moments of doubt, but I learned to keep moving forward, just like Lila did, one step at a time, trusting in the process and in the passion that had fueled me all along.
Months later, when I held my first published book in my hands, I smiled to myself. It wasn’t just my accomplishment—it was hers, too. Lila had shown me that the best way to overcome fear was by doing what you love, no matter how scary or uncertain it might seem.
So, if you’re out there holding back on your dreams, waiting for the “right time” or for fear to go away, take a page from Lila’s book. Start now. Create something. Do something. It might not be perfect, but that’s okay. Passion beats fear every time. And remember, you’re never too old to start living the life you’ve always wanted.
Share this story with anyone who might need a little inspiration today. Let’s remind each other to keep chasing our dreams, no matter the obstacles.
