Fear

Fear plays a very important part in our daily life, and in human society as a whole. Fear comes in many shapes and forms, but it could be described as: an unpleasant feeling of perceived risk or danger, real or not. It functions to make us alert and ready for action while expecting specific problems. Our most basic fear is the fear of death, which functions to make us alert in dangerous situations, and can thus be a very healthy emotion. But much less dramatic reasons of fear are found everywhere in our daily lives: 'Did I lock the house?', 'Isn't this food unhealthy?', 'Is my health insurance high enough?', 'Shouldn't my daughter be home yet?'. These worries can be based or quite baseless. Problematic types of fear can be when we are afraid of things that do not pose any real threat, like fear of spiders or large spaces. Fear and paranoia, together with attachment, craving and hatred are usually responsible for wars. In all cases, we could say that fear is a reaction to something that may happen in the future, be it realistic or not, it is always uncomfortable. And here we find one of the contradictions of fear itself: it should work to keep us from discomfort, yet it is uncomfortable itself. As fear is based on something that we think may happen in the future, it is clearly a mental process which tries to predict the future - in that sense, the reason of fear is a projection of our mind. We can be afraid to fall, but once we are falling, we are afraid to hit the ground, once we hit the ground, we may fear we have a bad injury, once we know we have a bad injury, we may fear the pain and the consequences of not being able to work for some time or become disabled etc. So one could say that fear is always based on something that has not happened yet, and is therefore a fantasy of our mind rather than fact. Fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real. The only way to get through fear is to face it head on. I learned a very simple lesson in college (I had many fears); Run towards that which I feared most instead of running away. Over time I gained a reputation of being courageous or brave. The real truth is that I am simply a coward who moves forward despite my fears. I believe Mark Twain said it best: "Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain." With all that said. I still have things I haven't faced, and stuff I'm still fearful of... however, I possess a lot less of them now, then I had before. Plus the few that remain, don't have quite the same sting to them. Have a beautiful and fearless day and carry this thought - If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you. Peace and Love, Jim