Last year, my husband's younger brother, his wife and their three young children came for a visit.  They stayed for two weeks.  In that two weeks, they not only fell in love with the U.S., but my brother-in-law, whose passion is computer software, learned more English than he had in fifteen years of studying, working and living in Japan.  So, the night before they all left to return to Japan, he said,"I'm coming back next year--to study."

Sure enough, in May he went to the American Embassy in Tokyo and applied for a student visa. He was rejected. I had a sinking feeling.  For while he believed that a command of English was just what he needed to further his career in software, perhaps he wouldn't get that chance. My brother-in-law, on the other hand, gave notice at his software security company, prepared to send his wife and children home to China, stopped the lease on his apartment and sold all his furniture.

He's mad, I thought.  He's jumping the gun.  What if he doesn't get the visa?

He went back to the Embassy.  And was rejected again.

Rather than turn and allow the next person in line to step forward, he said, "I can't accept that.  I've planned out the entire year, saved up money for my family to get by on, given notice at work.  I can't accept, 'no'."

They gave him the visa.

My brother-in-law has been studying at UC Extension since September.  He's among a young crowd; thirty-five is considered ancient.  And he readily admits that he's not the brightest bulb in the room.  But he's determined. 

He's passionate.

The second week he was here, the class was given an assignment to interview an American about family life.  Rather than take the easy way out--we have a whole houseful of Americans; we can switch languages when English becomes too difficult--he took his survey down to the park.  He didn't even ask me to help him write the survey questions.  I worried that he'd be ridiculed or robbed or hurt.  When he came home unscathed, I was relieved.  Even more so, when I saw his survey.  He wasn't decked  once, even though one of his questions read,  "How long do husband and wife stay hot after marriage?"

My brother -in-law has injected not only extra humor, but a fresh perspective on the same old stuff.  He and my five-year-old go around spelling things together and asking, always asking questions. Why would anyone drink blue water (kool-aid)? Why would you go to such effort to make a can to spritz out whip cream and then throw that can away? How do people survive without a car?

Last week, his class was working on idioms.  Many of our idioms--"kill two birds with one stone", "the longest journey starts with the first step"--are Chinese as well. (Or, perhaps, from China .) However, my brother-in-law told me one that I hadn't heard before.  As soon as I heard the words, I thought, "That's it."  Now, I think of those words all the time, especially when I'm dizzy with fear over revisions, the idea of showing my work to someone else, the possibility  my manuscript might be accepted and even more people would see it, the possibility that after all my efforts, my work would be rejected.

He said, "Where there is passion, there is no fear."

So the next time fear starts creeping over your shoulders, remember: this is your  passion.

Passion.

PASSION.