the very mention of the word makes me a little uncomfortable. what is it about fear that makes most of us instantly wish it to disappear? like a spot on a 17th century cartographer's map. fear makes me apprehensive and doubtful about a lot of things, but mostly myself. i don't like fear. it kinda turns me into a bed-wetting, bawling-like-a-baby schoolchild again. ok, so maybe not quite that extreme all the time, but it paints a pretty good picture.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
a man once said that. a man who had to deal with all kinds of fear throughout his life. did you know FDR almost died from polio? yeah, you're a pretty smart cookie, so i know you knew that. but it just shows how, once things are put into perspective, some of them just don't conjure up that fear like they used to.
i'm not quite sure how the 32nd president of these united states learned to deal with fear. fear of all kinds. i'm scared of a lot of things. some of them pretty pointless, like whether or not the diet coke i ordered at dinner will end up all over my lap. others, like making it through vet school in one piece (among countless other things), seem pretty large and in charge, if you catch my drift. why am i afraid? it could be that i really fear failure. i don't like the idea of not being able to succeed, especially if it is something that i really tried hard at. even worse is failing at something that i didn't put 100% effort into. i know pretty well that that sucks. and it hurts. a lot. fear of failure. fear of failure without trying.
in my "enlightened" state, i think that rather than being uncomfortable and "fearing fear," as it were, maybe we should embrace it. the new star trek movie (though i don't like to make a habit of quoting trekkies) puts a pretty good spin on it. i don't know the exact lines, but the general idea is that fear is normal. where we differ as individuals is our reaction in the face of fear. fear is normal. fear is normal. say THAT to yourself 10 times. mind-blowing, huh? it's something that i tend not to think about most days, but it is so true. our reactions to fear shape us as individuals. rather than allowing it to cripple us, we should dig deeper inside ourselves, and find out what we are really made of. i'm made of some pretty good stuff, myself, and i am only recently finding that out.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
that quote is somewhat of a mis-statement. rather, FDR should have said, "we can, and should, fear lots of things." our fear of those things is what allows us to deal confidently and effectively with them. so go. embrace your fears. confront them. and be a better person for it. i know i will be.
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