Fears

I am in the thick of the Divergent series (please dont judge, but my little chemo brain cannot handle the other books on my "to read" list) and a common thread throughout the first book is facing your fears. Everyone has fears of a variety of magnitudes. So while reading this book, I kept wondering what my own personal fears are and how do they play out in my life day to day?

My Fears:

• Death; my own personal death or those close to me
• Injury that would prevent me from working and I would have to depend on others
• "the unknown"
• Making a wrong decision that has large implications on my life
• Failure of any magnitude 
• Not saving enough money now for later and having to rely on others
• Snakes, clowns, feet, bugs that bite humans, etc

Fears are so interesting to me. Some of them are completely irrational and I am fully aware of that on a cognitive level, for example: clowns, snakes, feet, etc. But then there are the BIG fears, the kind that start with a capital "F". Those are the fears that "disrupt" life as we know it. I used to think cancer would be atop that list. It still might be. I am unsure.

Stepping up to face a fear is scary. Terrifying really. Not something we volunteer for on a regular basis. Facing fears requires bravery and strength. But if not pushed, why would one face a fear? My biggest fear I am facing right now is death; or at least the idea of death. It exists all around us, sometimes more intimately than others.

The thing is, in this broken world, we were not made to live forever. We are completely 100% affected by our environment, decisions we make socially and things that happen to us. Facing the idea of death is scary because we have our own specific plan for how this life is supposed to go. Death any earlier than 87 seems unnatural.

I was told once that the phrase "do not be afraid" is written 365 times in the Bible. Coincident (or not) that our modern calendar has 365 days in it. A daily reminder to not live in fear. I respect fear wholeheartedly. Fears obviously exist for a reason. But I would argue, at least in my life, when I give fear a little too much respect or space in my thoughts, it becomes disproportionate to the rest of my life. It starts to dominate my thoughts and produces anxiety.

So I am stepping out in saying I am going to give my fears the respect they deserve and evaluate each one. Because each of them produces an emotional response of either a past memory or a conceived situation produced by my brain. Some of them have driven me to do productive things in my life (which I would argue is ultimately good). Others have left me paralyzed thinking of the possibility of them. It would be interesting to me to know what others fear. And if others find they have a mix of rational and irrational fears. Something to ponder....