I’m declaring a personal war on fear. Fuck you fear.
OK, maybe it’s not as easy as throwing out a few threatening words and hoping that all of a sudden the axis simply shifts and you’re free of fear. Who’d want to have no fear at all for that matter? It’s irrational fear that I’m looking to take down.
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them” – Epictetus (~ 100 AD)
We weren’t born with fear. We have to learn it. Fear thrives on memory and context. As small children we have a limited cache of memory and our brains have not developed enough to really decipher context in any meaningful way. We are numb. It’s bliss.
Then we experience things and all of a sudden, boom! We get scared of things. Maybe initially it was the horror movie you watched (my favorite was always the Friday the 13 series), a dog that bit you when you were simply being nice to it, the time when all the kids in school laughed at you when you stood up to give your book report, or worse. A long fall. A car accident. A disease. Something triggered a thought that made you say “this doesn’t seem right, I now know to avoid this situation so I don’t experience the same feeling again.”
“It’s dark, I’m afraid.”
“It’s mean, I’m afraid.”
“It’s dangerous, I’m afraid.”
“It’s inevitable, I’m afraid.”
“I feel like I’ve lost control, I’m afraid.”
We can’t control everything in our environment and life would be pretty boring if we could. We can’t avoid every potentially dangerous situation and life would be pretty boring if we could (who would ever drive a car or fly in an airplane?). It’s just memory, context, perception. If you validate your fears by avoiding them, they will feed and grow and become more powerful. If you face your fear, however difficult, you will cut it off at the knees. You will control your fear and kick it’s ass.
So I’m declaring war on fear. Starting today.
Avoidance Junkie
