Response

Fear

What is fear? Where does it come from? Why are we scared of some things, but not others? Fear is, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger”, but what does this even mean?

Fear is something that makes us dread the occurrence of a particular event, whether it directly or indirectly involves us. We often develop this emotion through past experiences, good and bad. Good experiences that occur repeatedly, often leading to habits, cause us to be afraid of change. I’ve noticed this a lot in my own personal life, when I get into a routine after a period of time, I want it all variables to remain as consistent as possible. When one thing is out of place, it can throw your whole routine off balance. All through high school I played football at the varsity level. Any of you who play a sport you love, or know people who do, know athletes are some of the most superstitious people you’ll ever meet. Whether it’s a quirky pre-game ritual, or wearing your lucky socks that always stay in your locker and haven’t been washed since the first game of the season. Mine was spending time in the chapel by myself before every home game. If I wasn’t able to, for whatever reason, something just didn’t feel right.

Fear of change is something that can affect anyone, and on a large scale. One real life example, as harsh as it sounds, that affected many people in our nation was electing a man from a minority race as the president of our country. All throughout our country’s existence, our Commander and Chief has been a white male, from (usually) a Christian faith. When Barack Obama was elected many people did not know what to expect, especially in the rural farm community I live in, with such a major change from what they were raised believing.

Fear can also come from how we were raised, and what was pounded into our minds growing up. Coming from a small, rural community in the heartland of Ohio many people are scared of living in the city. They could be scared of the big city lifestyle, or even the stereotypical crime problems of the city. In the country, the worst that happens is someone smashing a mailbox, or shooting a stop sign. This can go both ways as well. People who were raised in the city can be fearful of moving to a rural area because it is too far from the mall, or they just simply like the tight knit environment where everything is close together and easy to access.

Why do we experience fear? Why can’t we just know the difference of right and wrong and go on with our lives? Fear is an emotion that can teach us right from wrong. Even at a young age, if a child falls down from running too fast or playing around on the stairs, after a couple times of getting hurt and crying their eyes out they will eventually realize “hey, this might no be such a good idea”. This comes from fear, the fear of pain. In this instance, fear acts as a way of helping us realize good and bad.

Breaking fear is something that is very hard to do, and often times most people will go on their entire life without breaking some of even the silliest fears. Whether it’s a fear of heights, or being afraid of the dark, at some point you must break these fears and as silly as it sounds, find new fears.

For the longest time, I was afraid of heights. Something about being off the ground did not appeal to me. In eighth grade, we took a class trip to Camp Lazarus to do the ropes course. For those of you who don’t already know, a ropes course is a series of obstacles approximately twenty five to thirty feet up in the trees. I was scared to death getting on the bus. Once we got there and I saw how high it was, I wanted nothing to do with it. After talking to a counselor about how I would be strapped in and couldn’t fall, I decided to give it a shot. After getting my harness on I slowly climbed up the starting tree. I got about half way up then made the worst mistake possible, I looked down. Being one of the first in my group to go, I didn’t want to be that kid who freaked out and couldn’t do it. So I kept on climbing. The first obstacle was a rope bridge, with two ropes to hang on to, and a narrow board to walk across. I got to the platform and hooked onto the cable. Scared to death, I looked down again. This time I was about twenty five feet up, and wanted nothing more than to come down. After some words of encouragement from my classmates, I took my first few steps across the bridge. After finding my center of gravity, I gained more and more confidence with each step. When I reached the other end, I remember looking back and thinking to myself, “did I really just do that”? I was so excited and from then on I flew through the rest of the obstacles. Some of which I would never expect myself to even attempt, let alone clear.

Fear is simply an emotion, it can come and go over time, or stay with you forever. The trick to fear is being able to recognize what you’re afraid of and being able to do something about it so you can go on with life, and find what else your afraid of and start the whole process over again.