You're not afraid of heights, you're afraid of falling.

You're not afraid of snakes, you're afraid of getting bit.

You're not afraid of the dark, you're afraid of what's in it.

You're not afraid of love, you're afraid of getting hurt.

You're not afraid of water, you're afraid of drowning.

You're not afraid of fire, you're afraid to get burned..

You're not afraid of living, you're afraid of dying.

You're not afraid of playing, you're afraid of losing.

You're not afraid of fear itself, you're afraid of its results..



Fear is an emotion that is embedded within all of us. No one knows the essence of fear, it is what it is- intangible. The strongest of men fall to the mercy of fear, consuming the mind, and blocking all rational judgment. Fear is experienced by every being of the human species. It is an utterly unavoidable emotion. The extent and range of fears varies from person to person, but the emotion is the same. One person's reaction of seeing a snake will be similar to another person's reaction of walking into a train station. The body is programmed to react in a distinct fashion once the stimulus is recognized.

We fear many different things: death, disease, old age, commitment, noises in the night, pain, responsibility, work, being too fat or too thin, or any number of other things. Some of our fears are reasonable and rational, like the fear for our safety so we lock our doors at night, never walk alone on dark streets, and turn on lots of lights to keep the boogie man away. We fear for our health so we diet, exercise, and eat only healthy foods. Our fears can also help us make wise decisions: where to live, what to do with our money, how to raise our children, even what kind of car to drive and whether or not to drive it.

Our fears may be sudden like when your kid brother jumps out behind you and yells ‘boo’. People’s fears can be built up over a long period of time, for example, during the cold war millions of people thought that at any moment they would be attacked by the Russians, so they built bomb shelters because of that fear. Some of our fears come straight from our imagination. They may appear irrational or silly to others, but serious and deadly to others.

For every phobia, the infinitely inventive and infinitely fearful human mind can create, there is a word that has been coined to describe it. There's nephophobia or fear of clouds and coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. It's one thing to invent a word like arachibutyrophobia, another to find someone who's really afraid of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. Other phobias, however like acrophobia (fear of heights) and agoraphobia (a crushing paralysing terror of anything outside of the safety of the home) can be deadly serious business. Researchers are making enormous progress in determining what phobias are, and what kinds of neurochemical storms they trigger in the brain.

Most people are scared of uncertainty. Others fear superstitions. Others are experienced in their fear. Uncertainty is nothing more than danger. Like the ones listed at the top, each action has a possible consequence. In order to overcome this, you must take risks. Superstitions are all in your head. Whether you believe them or not is totally up to you. Fears based on experience are harder to overcome because you know the outcome. But every fear has the ability to be demolished.

So will we face our fears? Or will we let them rule our lives? Are you living in fear? Or are you denying it the power to control you? Can you face it? Or will you live with it? Fear makes the wolf more rabid than he really is. Some say that our only fear is fear itself, but I disagree. Fear is consequences. Fear is in your head. If you tell yourself you're afraid, then you are. But if you face it and prove yourself wrong, then you're free. To be fearless is not to be without it. It's to have mastered it. It is getting to the point in which fear does not bring us down. Fearlessness is having the courage to face your fears. We must all learn to be fearless.

Everyone is afraid of something. So what's your fear? What makes you tick?