Why do people fear things in life? It is a completely unnecessary task that only results in the belittling of potential. I suppose certain things are embedded in to people from their childhood. Others might be a bit more universal (fear of rejection). Really, though, what is the point of fearing something? If we are supposedly smart and intelligent beings then why do we fear things when not fearing them is a more productive alternative? Fear stems usually from one of two branches. On one, we have things that we don't know about, and thus fear them. On the second hand, we have things which have proven themselves worthy of fearing. But think about some common fears for a moment. A lot of people have a fear of spiders. Why do they fear such small creatures? The majority of house spiders are not venomous or aggressive towards humans, yet some people fear them upon sight.
We've all seen those crazy talk shows where people are afraid of mustard or cockatiels, and while there are extreme cases like this (in which case genetics might be a more proper explanation) what about more broad cases that seem to apply to everyone? Fear of death is pretty universal, as is the fear of rejection or fear of not being accepted. Each of these has their own characteristics of course, which makes talking about them as a whole rather difficult. Fear of death stems from fear of not knowing something, or fear of losing something. Fear of rejection and not being accepted stems also from not knowing how something will turn out.
So why do humans hesitate and fear things? Why not simply carry out the task that is feared to see if it is truly worth fearing? What mental block has been put upon us that makes us unable to act? The origin of fearing within an individual can be explained in a countless amount of ways. I'd guess that one of the most predominant explanations is that fear stems simply from a force which is unknown, or contains aspects of uncertainty, or has proven itself a fearful aspect. For those crazy people (I use that term loosely) who fear mustard and cockatiels, they overcome their fears by - not surprisingly - being introduced to mustard and cockatiels. So how does a normal person go about confronting and overcoming their fears? Probably by engrossing themselves in whatever it is they fear until it becomes normal.
There's too many exceptions to say that any of this is true. For instance a rape victim might fear sex, and having as much sex as possibly to overcome this fear obviously wouldn't be a good idea. There's other examples also but I won't bore you with any. I'm just curious as to why a person can see what their fears are, see how to overcome them, see why they should overcome them, and know why they should overcome them, and still not act. Is it lack of motivation? Lack of self will or determination? Is there no one answer, but rather a set of templates which vary from person to person? I honestly just don't know. Emotion is what separates humans from much of the other species in the animal kingdom. It can be why we are in many ways superior, and in many other ways inferior.
2 comments:
here's a universal law that seems to always be true in my life: the more i focus on what is lacking in my life, the more that very thing appears. it works out better for me if i go about the business of "doing something" that's the total opposite of the things i'm fearing. for example, if i was given a really tough assignment at work, and i was worried i couldn't handle it, i literally put that thought out of my mind and got busy doing the assignment. i let go of the outcome of what the final product would look like or how i would be judged. it was my best effort and that was all i could offer. i know there's lots of people out there who would do things much differently than me; with results that might be more effective or less. thing is, i can't worry about that. i can just keep my eyes open and learn and grow and be the best person I can be.
Why do we fear? It's engrained into our beings to fear. We naturally fear that which we do not understand or that which seems so far from us. Fear, however, isn't always a bad thing. Fear is what keeps us from doing things that would be foolish, like polishing a loaded gun, throwing yourself into a bonfire, or taunting your little sister when it's that time of the month...you know what I mean, heh. Fear can be oppresive, this goes without saying. Look at all those phobias out there. Fear of spiders, fear of leaving the house, fear of the dark, fear of people, fear of the color yellow, and so on. I'm an extremely neurotic person. I fret and fear over a number of different things. However, I do not let that fear be my motive force, I overcome fear. Every fear that I've ever had I've faced head-on. I used to be terrified of heights. What did I do? I climbed onto the roof of my house and jumped off. Yeah, that might be a little extreme, but I no longer fear heights. I used to be horrified of being in public situations, I have a social anxiety disorder. Did I take pills to overcome this? Hell no, I forced myself to be in the public eye more by delivering public addresses. Now in any class where I have to give a speach or presentation I'm almost always told by my instructors and peers that I'm a natural public speaker. If only they new the internal adversity I had to overcome.
I guess all that is my round-about way of saying that fear is a part of life. We will always fear something. But don't let fear take the wheel and steer. There's still one big fear tha I battle with constantly, but it's nowhere near as incompacitating as it used to be. It feels like at times I'm using an icepick to chip away at a glacier. But I'm a patient and determined man, so I will overcome this thing that would have me believe I was a child alone in the midst of night.
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