MAY 19, 2023
What are you afraid of? We all have fears in life and spend an enormous amount of time and energy worrying, fighting, and running from those fears. Our fears often lead to our insecurities and our insecurities back to our fears. When you feel insecure, it’s easy to feel afraid of the world. You might be insecure of how others perceive you, which can morph into a fear of being rejected or ostracized. You might be insecure about your appearance or social habits, which can in turn, lead to the fear of being alone, and so on.
Here are five basic fears that many of us carry around with us.
- Fear of Poverty: Symptoms include indifference, doubt, worry, over-caution, and procrastination. Some people and families still carry the DNA of this threat from the years of the Great Depression.
- Fear of Criticism: This is huge with many people. Once we think we have figured life out, we don’t anyone else to “Tell us what to do.” WRONG! We all need guidance and closer relationships to guide us through our entire lives.
- Fear of ill health: I see this more and more with my contemporaries as we tend to worry about our health more than being grateful that we have lived this long. I like the old saying; “Your Health is your Wealth.” Try living life that way and just might worry less.
- Fear of “Loss of love of someone;” God loves us all. But we all need someone to love and someone to love us in this earthly life. Look to your mentors, brothers, family, and your faith to assist you in overcoming fear.
- Fear of old age; This is also a huge one for those of us in the fourth quarter of our lives. The only things guaranteed in this life are death and taxes. (along with more death and more taxes)
Fear is the oldest and deepest of all emotions. Fear is usually about an imagined, not actual future which keeps us from moving forward in life. Fear is often said to stand for; “False Expectations Appearing Real.” When you worry about an imagined fear-filled future, your emotions often draw that imagined feared experience to you.
To overcome our fears, we must be bold and have some courage. Nobody likes to be a coward, so gain some courage and confidence and be more proactive rather than reactive. Want to get stronger? Then build some hardship into your life every day. This will allow for growth and confidence. Be stronger in your mind, but also with your body and your spirit. By doing something hard every day, you will be prepared to deal with the hard things that will certainly happen to all of us.
Don’t be afraid. Build a strong foundation of faith, wisdom, courage, self-mastery, and love. Be strong and courageous in your life. Take a little risk and step outside of yourself. If you just keep moving ahead slowly into your future, you find it wasn’t as scary as you had imagined or expected. (Just like learning to ride a bike.) Just take your first step. You can do it.
Elevator Guy
Quote for the Day: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” Plato