Fear

I find it quite exhilarating that we live in a world full of wonders we barely question. We are all shaped by some kind of stimulus, and our thoughts are fueled by all sorts of emotions: love, greed, hatred, fear, lust.

I decided to break down fear because it has become especially dominant as the world has grown more chaotic and unpredictable over the past few decades. Today, we'll dissect it to understand its effects on daily life and, perhaps, find a way to cope with it.

What Is Fear?

We could argue that fear is a state of mind, the feeling that floods us when uncertainty takes over. It can arise from anything that threatens our life, happiness, comfort, or way of living. It can also stem from past experiences.

The curious thing is that, in many cases, we fear something that does not yet exist in the present. We fear that something from the past may happen again, or something that has yet to come. Even when danger is immediate, much of our fear comes from anticipating what might happen next.

Isn't that interesting?

So you might ask: why fear, then?

Fear is an alarm system. It warns us that something may threaten our safety, stability, or well-being. A child who fears fire learns to stay away from it. A driver who fears an accident becomes more vigilant on the road. In that sense, fear is information.

The problem begins when the alarm keeps ringing even when there is no immediate danger.

We start imagining everything that could go wrong.

What if I fail? What if I lose my job? What if I make the wrong decision?

At that point, fear stops being useful, if I dare say, and starts controlling us.

Perhaps what we truly fear is not the event itself, but the uncertainty around it.

Imagine standing in your room in the dark when you suddenly hear a noise from the kitchen. Nobody else is in the house. It is two in the morning.

Dear Lord, have mercy.

We both know you are not going to check.

Your mind immediately fills in the blanks. The less information you have, the more possibilities it invents.

Fear thrives in those empty spaces.

That also explains why waiting can feel worse than bad news. A test result. Your grades at the end of the semester.

Our imagination can invent a myriad of disasters before reality produces one, and somehow, we live through all of them as if they were real.

Fascinating!

Fear can also keep us from fully living.

Fear of failure can stop us from trying.

Fear of rejection can keep us from speaking.

Fear of death can keep us from living.

You get the gist.

We sacrifice real opportunities in the present to protect ourselves from imaginary suffering in the future.

So how much of our lives is shaped by fear of things that may never happen?

How Do We Deal With It?

We should learn to question fear.

What exactly am I afraid of?

Is this only in my head?

What do I actually know?

What can I control?

What can I do right now?

Fear wants to drag us into tomorrow before tomorrow arrives. These questions bring us back to the present.

We cannot control every outcome. We cannot predict every failure, loss, accident, or rejection. But we can decide what we do with the moment in front of us.

There is another way to cope with fear:

Replace it with faith.

Fear and faith have something interesting in common: both deal with things we cannot yet see.

Fear looks at uncertainty and imagines what could go wrong.

Faith looks at that same uncertainty and chooses to keep moving.

Faith builds the confidence that the future does not need to be fully understood in order to be trusted.

Fear imagines the future and expects the worst.

Faith faces the same unknown and keeps walking.

So the next time fear floods in, question it.

Ask where it is coming from. Separate what is real from what your mind has invented. Focus on what you can control today.

And when uncertainty leaves an empty space, be careful what you allow to fill it.

Fear will gladly do it.

But so will faith.