Our Fears

'Trust your hopes, not Your Fears”
- David Mahoney

We all have our individual fears in life – it could be the fear of death, fear of darkness, fear of heights and more abstractly, the fear of the past, the present and/or fear of the future. Fear is unhealthy. It often grips our hearts, mixes our emotions and cripples our spirit and sometimes because of our own fears, we may also affect the hearts, emotions and the spirit of the people we love.
I used to think of myself as one who knows what I want in life and from life. I used to start the journey of each new chapter of my life with something in mind. We always have dreams. Sadly however, like I said in one of my previous entries ’30 Year Old Milestone”, I can now only lament about the things I have wanted to do but never got around doing it, the accomplishments I’ve always dreamed of but have yet to achieve. And when I look back, I think that it was ‘FEAR’ that held me back – the fear of venturing into new stuff, the fear of taking risks, the fear of exiting my comfort zone and at that time, the fear of the future – our future is that particular zone of life about which we have no definite idea (not that I am any more definite now). [that said, perhaps its time to reinvent? Or perhaps I can edit that portion of my life?]
Fear is not a positive energy – it drains us emotionally and psychologically and it makes us a more pessimist people. Fears come in many forms. One of my more common fears is that, I fear to see to the closing of each chapter of my life but that’s simply because I fear to embark on the daunting task of writing the opening lines to the each new chapter of my life. What would the storyline be and how would I want my life chapter to go?
I am 30 going on 31 (gosh, the numbers look old!) and, God willing, if I live to 90, that means I am into the second third (2/3) of my life. I always hold on to this believe that we are the author of our own lives i.e. our lives is how we live it. Just like a manuscript is broken down by different chapters, our lives are broken down and defined in stages. Guess it’s time to spice up my otherwise dull and dry life chapters? It’s important that chapters to a novel should captivate the readers – likewise life chapters should be spiced up otherwise it’s gonna be monotonous and boring.
Having said all that, as I ponder and delve deeper into these things, I realize that today it’s neither the closing paragraphs nor opening lines of each life chapter that puts me off. The fear perhaps could be myself dreading to write and/or go through the “preludes” to the next chapter of my life? I guess I don’t like transitions. I know I am speaking in riddles and some of it does not make sense but it’s so good to be able to put thoughts to paper, tho’ it be electronically at best. I am glad for this outlet.
Before I wind this entry down, I just want to say that fears are inevitable. In many cases, fear is now simply a flag to us that we are entering new, unknown chapters.

“When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on” 
- Franklin D. Roosevelt