Fear

What is fear? It defines so many actions and decisions in our lives, but we never really pay attention to it. With the current coronavirus outbreak, it’s really easy to see fear in our lives now. It’s palpable. Entire stores cleaned out of their face masks, wipes, toilet paper, food. It’s insanity, especially for a virus that isn’t even as lethal as the common flu. What are we so afraid of? Well, the easiest answer is

Death

Of course we’re afraid of death. Self-preservation is coded into our DNA. A being that doesn’t have a sense of self-preservation built in will die out. Fear then is to keep us away from things that might kill us. Things that are dangerous. But we still fear things that pose no physical real danger to us. Fear of commitment, fear of returning exam grades, fear of a bunch of irrational things. Why? What danger do these things pose? Fear of grades? Perhaps a failing grade on this test could do a significant amount of damage to the path that you (or maybe not even you) have laid out for yourself in life. It certainly won’t cause you to die, but you’re at risk of loss. Fear of commitment then? Perhaps a loss of control? Humans are so loss averse. We can’t bear the idea of losing anything. It causes wrenching pain. We’re all so controlling. So to lose control is a double loss. Maybe that’s why so many people have that issue. But what are you in danger of? Surely in most cases it won’t be a life or death situation. Committing to a decision in fact is how you’re supposed to live life: deliberately and decisively. But we as humans think that we’re in danger of losing other things. We imagine other opportunities, other futures, other destinies that could vanish because we made a decision. A what-if. I’ll say it here and now.

Destiny doesn’t exist

There is no predetermination, no set soulmate, no path that’s set out for you in life. If you want it, you need to take it. Life’s full of variables and chance. It’s not even really chance, it’s a combination of so many variables that we might as well call it random because we will never be able to comprehend so much data. Which leads me to… fear of the unknown. We’re all so afraid of things that we aren’t sure about. What if what if what if what if what if??? Again, that fear of loss comes back, but now there’s a genuine concern for your safety. That unknown could really kill you. But what’s in that unknown could just as easily be incredibly good. There’s no guarantee that an unknown is bad in any way. People who take that risk and throw themselves into the unknown are the ones who can really say that they’ve made it. There’s no reward without risk. You won’t gain much if you hedge all your bets. So even though everything hurts and I’ve fallen victim to that risk over and over and over and over and over and over again. Even though sometimes it feels like God exists only to curse me. Even though my life feels like one hellish rollercoaster that beats and bruises me and is somehow always on an incline and never gives me any sort of reward, I’m all in.