Fear

Something I read recently really made me think. Why are we afraid?

As someone who is young, I have the fear of the young: that my or someone else's actions will do enough damage to end my world.

Confronting a friend who has wronged you, picking the wrong college to attend, telling someone that you love them, and risking getting rejected - all of these are heart-wrenching, and seem like they could change your life forever. In some small way, maybe they will.

The fear of change is the fear I have most often observed in people, including myself. A fear that with change comes loss. I have become afraid that I won't change enough, because habits are too easy to keep, and my fear of rejection is strong.

However, as kids in our teens or early 20s, we always forget the most obvious, important things. We all have another 50 or 60 years to figure out that change happens all the time, sometimes beyond our control, and we should always think about it in a positive light.

Even though the little things seem big in the here and now, they will probably not matter next year, five years from now, twenty years from now, and especially when you are dead. I think a good measure of what to fight for is what will still affect you in the distant future.

As a result, I am trying to put my own fears aside. I am naturally high-strung, so three-fourths of them are probably imagined anyway. If I don't make an effort to become content now, I never will be.

I've also made a promise to myself that I will never be too afraid to talk about my life or my problems on this blog. If I ever leave something out, it is only because I want to be happy, and I don't want to let others take that away from me. Choosing your battles is not the same thing as being afraid to speak of them.

I'm not saying it's possible to stop being afraid, period. There has always been and will always be fear, since the first prey ran from the first predator. Bravery has always been and will always be courage in the face of fear, not the absence of it.