FEAR

Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day. ~Brendan Francis

Fear is a strange beast, it can either propel you into action or paralyze you. I know certain faces of fear but I don't know them all, you have your fear of failing, fear of getting a bad diagnosis, fear of physical or emotional pain, fear of the unknown, fear of success, fear of death, fear of living, fear of losing someone, fear of spiders, height, and closed spaces; there might be more that I haven't mentioned but you get my drift. Fear can actually induce anxiety or panic attacks.

Personally, I relate to instant fear, the kind that you feel when threatened and even the imaginary fear one creates while wondering what if...However, I have a hard time relating to long term fear, the kind that becomes a life style. The fear that has transformed itself into phobia. How does it happen and why people stay in that state of constant fear?

I have encounter a few people living with constant fear, they are paralyze by it, and yet, they all have so much to offer the world; somehow, they seem to stay in what they perceive to be a safety bubble, a comfort zone, while limiting their options and their lives. I find this difficult to comprehend because it lacks in rationality, yet there are so many people out there living these internal fear, every day, every hour, every minute and every second of their days are consume by it.

There are only two reactions we can have when faced with fear, action or paralysis. I wonder, is it a question of wiring that will produce one of those two reactions, or is it conditioning?

I am no expert on fears beside my own personal experiences. I've always hated being afraid, and from a very young age I battled with all kinds of fears; I was determined to be fearless. I was afraid of water, bridges, darkness, spiders, thunder, height and closed spaces, somehow, I managed to conquer each one of those fears, I have learned how to swim, I have been crossing bridges without giving it a second thought, I am also able to be at ease in darkness, spiders have become ok in my book because they trap bugs, as for the fear of thunder it didn't belong to me it was passed on by my grandmother, she was terrified of it and used to wake me up at night to keep her company waiting for the storm to pass, the fear of closed spaces stemmed from being locked in a restaurant bathroom for over an hour when I was four, I am happy to say that I can manage that one as well. What about height? Well, I no longer qualify it as a fear, it is mainly uncomfortable to be on a ledge looking down from higher up, but I do manage to go up ladders without to much discomfort, but there is something to be said about the pull you feel when looking down, technically it is not the height I fear but the luring of gravity that calls me to the experience.

In my experience, the weirdest of all the fears is the one I try anticipating, fear of something that has not happened yet, but could. A fear that belongs to the world of imagination, conceiving how I would feel if a certain negative or malefic event would happen. When I lose myself in one of those scary imaginary scenarios, I start an internal fight trying to tune out my fearsome thoughts, I try redirecting them before they over power my sense of reason, otherwise I would sink into panic mode. When in panic mode, you have to fight harder, run like hell out of the danger zone. Maybe, I fear getting stuck into panic mode, and that in itself is a strong motivation not to go there.

I endured my share of bad things but it never made sense to me to waste the rest of my life stuck in a timeline of fear for an event or situation that lasted an hour, a day, a week, months, or even years. I like freedom too much to be locked in within my own mind by fear.

I don't know why I am able to shake it off like an old rag, is it because of the uncertainties of my early childhood that I developed some fighting tools to deal with my fears, or is it curiosity that is conquering the fears?

It saddens me to know so many people are living with these limiting fears. I wish there was a miracle cure for fear, that it could be erased as easily as a pencil mark.

Lets not forget that fear can also be a useful tool, but only in small doses.

Here are some interesting quotes about FEAR:

You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith. ~Mary Manin Morrissey

Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop. ~Usman B. Asif

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. ~Marie Curie

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety. ~Henry Louis Mencken

Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them. ~Brendan Francis

Fear is faith that it won't work out. ~Sister Mary Tricky

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. ~Bertrand Russell

He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all thinking, damages his personality and makes him a landlord to a ghost. ~Lloyd Douglas

Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile... initially scared me to death. ~Betty Bender

The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid. ~Lady Bird Johnson



I look forward to your comments.