Fear Rambles

I don’t run like hell when I am afraid. I’m used to weathering the storm. When shitty situations arise, I act calmly, except for the one time with my car accident.

But there will always be something we are afraid of. We can face it again and again, thinking we can “overcome” it in some fashion. Part biological response, part in our own minds. When a situation arises where you might die, we often try to push on the breaks and hope we stop before we fall off that cliff. We can risk our lives again and again, hoping to overcome that fear and for what purpose? To not be scared of dying? To not be scared of the unknown that death presents? Or instead is it the fear of being alive?

I cannot say I transcend fear, all I can say is, I embrace it when it happens. If its an issue that affects my life, I work with it. Courage to me, no matter how small it is, is the ability to stand and do while afraid. It took courage for me to drive after the accident. I got into a car accident earlier this year, someone drove into my car, but I’m not “afraid” per se. It’ become more of the cautionary and I am more of a defensive driver now more than ever.

The thing is, I think is impossible to completely eradicate fear. We always fear something. The point is, to not let it control your life.

For example the fear of dying, we could a) try to do crazy shit because we don’t want to die without having done it b) or try to ‘avoid’ such situations. I don’t want to die yet. I however, am not going to let the feelings of ‘death’ drive me crazy. I’m not going to stop getting into a car, or traveling by train, or airplane, or sledding, or ice skating, white water rafting…because I am scared of dying. I don’t let it control me.

It doesn’t mean go be stupid. I’m not stupid enough to walk around the forest at night because of coyotes and fisher cats and god knows what else. I try very hard to be a defensive driver, but my fear of another car accident is not going to stop me driving my car. The other day some old man as he was coming out of the gas station almost hit me. Damn old man, look where you going, but I can’t let that fear grasp me and control all my actions.

Fear isn’t meant to be comfortable. Fear is there as a response for a reason. It used to be us, the fight or flight response, an instinct deep within us even to this day. To me, it’s like the lesson of when you first touch something hot as a child, you understand this is hot, this burns, and it hurts and so you don’t do it again. You become cautious because you recognize the danger. This is where you ’embrace’ the fear. You become aware and cautious.