13. Fear

We don't like to think about them much, for obvious reasons. But our fears have a great influence over our lives. Fear is so ingrained into our very beings, that we know fear from day one. They say for the very early months of our birth, we have two universal fears... Loud noises and falling down. From those times of our lives, we grow and change, along with our fears. But what exactly are fears? Why do we have them? Why do they have such a hold over us? Lastly, how do we get over them? Those are all questions we must ask within ourselves. For every human on earth, has different fears to different degrees. One may be so afraid of heights, jumping off a chair seems like a horror too impossible to endure, and another will jump out of a plane thousands of feet in the air just because its fun. We all have our own unique fears at our own unique level.

Fear began as an evolutionary trait, we fear things in order to survive and protect ourselves. In allot of ways, for a long time fear was a great benefit to us. It allowed us to live longer, to build more, and advance through the ages. Fear is the adaptation that forced us to push forward and arm ourselves against the beasts of the jungle, and each other. As human society grew, so did our brains, along with our fears. We now live in a world where we no longer have to fear the saber toothed tiger growling in the bushes, or a rival tribe raiding our villages. In our world now, the dangers have disappeared significantly, but our fears have lingered on stubbornly. Humans are not good at change, it takes many years for us to adapt to certain changes. Thus we still have allot of the fears of older times, but without the actual danger there. Here is an example, almost everybody is terrified of clowns... When was the last time a clown hurt or killed anyone, obviously not counting movies or media, real waking life? Of course clown murders are extremely rare, yet we fear them so much, why? Because they do not look like us, they look exaggerated, colorful, and out of the norm. It is a known fact that humans do not respond well to anyone or anything that does not look like them. Another example, spiders, we all fear spiders. When was the last time a spider bit you or did real damage to someone you know? Again excluding movies and media. Other than the very occasional accidents where someone is bitten by a venomous spider, most of us have never had a real valid reason to fear spiders to such a degree. Here's an interesting fact, the vast majority of humans have an extreme fear of sharks. Did you know that cows kills far more people than sharks per year? Your hamburger you had for lunch was a more efficient killer of humans, than a great white shark swimming in the ocean as your reading this. Fear and logic are two concepts that are miles apart.   

Lastly, when your fears become stronger then you, they become phobias. When our fears mutate and become purely illogical, these phobias bind themselves to our lives and take over. Usually steaming from a trauma or bad experience early in life, these phobias cause us to fear ridiculous and illogical things. All phobias have different ranging degrees, but some have become so bad that it can severely limit ones life. Why do we let these petty fears control our lives so much? Because humans are not logical critical thinking beings, we do not think, “Why am I afraid of this? How can it actually hurt me? It literally cant. It is harmless!” No, we think “This is scary! It's going to kill me, get it away from me!”. Our emotions are far more powerful than the logical part of our brains. So how do we conquer these fears that have grown to phobias? There are a host of ways to do that, such as therapy, self reflection, family/friends support, and what is pretty much the universal way of doing it and is also the hardest... Facing your fears. When there truly is no danger, you must look your fears dead in the eyes and decide that from the moment, they will no longer control you. To get rid of the monster in your closet, you must embrace it and than you will realize that it was never there to begin with.

To truly defeat your fears and phobias, you must allow one single fear to remain in your brain forever... The fear of not living life to the fullest.