I am sure your heard the famous quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt which stated that the, “only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. In contrast, others constantly state that fear can paralyze a person’s ability to live a more fulfilled life. Unlike others’ advice, I am here to tell all of you that F.E.A.R. is our friend and that we should embrace it within our lives to achieve the dreams our heart has desired for so long. Do you want to know what I am talking about? Keep on reading.
Fear is a matter of perspective and that perspective is often taught to us by our social norms within whatever cultural or geographic location we have grown up in. From childhood we may have been taught that certain actions are considered inappropriate, certain thoughts should never be entertained or challenged, and possibly taught that the way other cultures do things are the wrong way of doing things in life. In addition, a lot of us may have been told to play it safe in life and not to make waves within our communities because those around us might take a negative outlook on what we are doing, criticize us, or even label us outcasts. There is a constant fear message to conform to the norm or be judged for your actions that is killing creativity and blocking positive advances in human development within this global village we all call Earth.
In fact, many great men and women of history that challenged the norm of their time were considered out of their minds. One case in point is a very famous theorist, by the name of Albert Einstein. After his publication of the theory of relativity in the early 1900s, he received a lot a criticism due to others inability to grasp what he was theorizing. Although after a careful and honest look at Albert Einstein’s ideas, his theory of relativity is widely accepted in international scientific communities today. When people don’t understand something, in most cases, they fear it, begin to reject it and then the criticism or violence comes shortly afterward. If people would let go of their fears, open their minds to new ideas, and personally experience the wonders this world has to offer, then half of our modern day squabbles would be solved from such a practice. With that said, dreamers become targets of the world’s criticism as soon as they express themselves in public.
Fear can come from within, as well. In fact, I am sure we all are familiar with the phrase “don’t worry yourself to death” which is honestly the act of a person becoming their own worst enemy. Sometimes we can talk ourselves out of doing something because we are not completely confident in our own abilities to achieve what we are after. I like to call this type of action “Self Talk”, which is that little voice a person hears inside their head which holds them back when they should be going forward in life.
In addition, worry can result from a person that may have actually been hurt or emotionally injured by their past experiences within a similar situation that has paralyzed them in the present. This personalized fear has to be faced and challenged directly in order to persevere in life. In this case, a personalized stereotype has developed that is actually limiting and hurting that person who created such a belief because it causes them to live in fear. They are not as free as they use to be in life and they have caged themselves in, with regard to that area of their life. Some examples of such a fear would be an experience with another culture. For example, let’s just say that an American insults or hurts someone from an Asian culture in some way. The fear that the Asian person can develop is that ALL Americans are like this and will hurt them, so they become highly suspicious and restrict their interactions with Americans from that day forward, therefore limiting their own ability to possibly develop wonderful relationships with other Americans over the years. How do these examples relate to our dreams?
These examples relate to dreams because the same thing can happen to someone who has a dream in life. As a dreamer, you may have been told by those close to you or those within your own societal community that your ideas are crazy and that you will not be successful by pursuing your own dreams. You may have had personal experience with other dreams or projects that you wanted to be successful but ended in failure. In addition, you may find yourself worrying about failure so much that you are at a stand-still in life, not knowing what to do next. Well, I want to express to you that you don’t have to live by others’ definition of fear any longer.
Since fear is a learned perspective from a particular development process that we engaged in through interactions with others in our lives, let’s redefine fear in order to help us discover our true potential in life. How can this be done? Simple… we are dreamers aren’t we? We pride ourselves in stepping out from the crowd and seeing the possibilities in things when others are still blindly following what they are taught to accept in life. So if this is the case, then we need to push the limits of our fears. Make fear work for us, instead of us being enslaved by its crushing hands. Fear is only as strong as we make it and fear is defined by how each individual decides to describe it in their life, so then… isn’t fear truly under our control if we are the ones defining it?
When facing fear in the face, we no longer need to bend to its wishes for our lives, but instead, we should redefine it into something that will encourage us to go on. To start you on the right path with regard to redefining what fear means to you, I would like to suggest an acronym that I discovered which spells out the word fear, but redefines the meaning into a positive affirmation. This acronym is “Face Everything And Rise” (F.E.A.R.). So the next time you find fear between you and your dreams, I want you to face it and rise because you define your own fears and can eliminate them just the same. Good luck and keep on dreaming.
Note From The Author:
It is time for us to stop giving in to what other people have told us to fear and start redefining the meaning of fear for our own lives. It is now time for fear to serve our needs and wishes throughout this life of opportunities.
I would like my readers to understand that we all have been programmed by our societies and our experiences in life to learn how to fear. The kind of fear that destroys dreams or prevents dreams from ever being born in life. I want my readers to know, as forward thinkers, that we do not and should not accept fear as an excuse to kill who we are inside. In fact, we see fear as we have defined it in our lives, so if we define fear then it has no power over us and we should choose to redefine fear's existence in our lives within a positive way in order to achieve our goals.
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