Fear: Don’t Live Smaller than You’re Capable
john mayer: fear is a friend who’s misunderstood
Dear Jen, you often think of fear as a bad thing, but it’s not always. Fear is what has kept your ancestors alive long enough to invent cities, and light bulbs, and the Swiffer WetJet. Fear keeps you from doing dangerous things that have no benefit to you. In situations that are truly dangerous, fear heightens your sense of awareness, focuses your attention, and helps you survive.
The problem comes when you’re not in any real danger. In those situations and only in those situations, fear itself is the only thing that you have to be afraid of.
Not all fears are created equal. There are healthy fears, and there are unhealthy fears, and there’s a big difference between the two. Healthy fears put a fence around your life, a hedge around your behaviors, relationships, and habits. That fence keeps you from going places that will get you hurt or that will get others hurt. Mia is highly allergic to ants, for instance, and it makes perfect sense for her to be afraid when she sees a giant red ant hill. The problem comes when your fears begin to keep you from things that aren’t harmful to you at all or from things that could actually benefit you. That’s when your fear becomes unhealthy. If Mia’s fear of ants developed to the point where she would never leave the house, that’s an unhealthy fear. Unhealthy fears build fences, too. They’re just much, much small. Instead of keeping you protected, the fence of an unhealthy fear boxes you in. It forces you to live a life that is smaller than the life you are capable of living. It’s a fence that has become a cage.
“…and what do you fear, Eowyn, daughter of the King?
‘A cage.’ Eowyn said, “To stay behind bars until use and old-age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’”
