Fear

A racing heart. Twitchy, sweaty palms. A bouncing leg that must be stilled. A deep breath which does nothing to still the scream creeping its way up your throat that you have to choke down or draw stares from everyone around you. The desperate, tense shoulders, ready to run and nowhere to run to.

Fear. There's nothing quite like it.

It's a part of life, like it or not. One could even make the argument that it is beneficial, a physical manifestation of self preservation deeply embedded in our psyches with the "flight or fight" instinct. Others choose to see its more pragmatic effect: it stops people from reaching for their dreams.

I know people who are scared of failure, of hardship. People who are unhappy with their lives yet are unwilling to try and do what makes them happy because they don't know if it will work. "It's important to have a job and support myself," said one of these people, ignoring the fact that starting a restaurant consulting business wouldn't necessarily cut into his day job at first. People who let fear rule them always have that excuse ready, that "Get Out of Jail Free" card sitting in their back pockets, ready to pull out whenever anyone challenges them so they will not have to face their fears.

It's sad that this is how society works. A society ruled by fear isn't a society I want to be a part of. I don't want to let fear rule me, my friends, or my family. I was all of us, myself included, to pursue our dreams without fear of falling because we all know that there is someone to catch us if and when we do indeed fail.

It's funny how the more you gain in life, whether it be success or friends or physical possessions, the more scared you are to lose them. After all, what does it matter if you amount to anything if life just takes all that you've worked for away?

I haven't much in the way of physical possessions or success; I'm still in school and have a lot of life to live before I can claim those. My friends are people whom I love and yeah, I'm a little scared that something will happen to cause me to lose them one day, but losing something else scares me even more, something more precious to me than money or success or even my friends: my happiness. It took me so long to achieve that I don't want to do anything to break myself out of this protective bubble that keeps me in suspended animation, in a place where I like who I am and am happy with simply being me.

I know I still have issues from my past that I need to work on, anxiety to calm and self-deprecating words to eliminate from my vocabulary. Yet, to do so involves doing something very, very scary to me: talking about myself, who I was, and why I am who I am today. It's a long and convoluted story, and the people who I have talked with about it have been very understanding and supportive, much more than myself. I don't like thinking about it or talking about it because it brings me back to that time when I was spiraling out of control. Yet, if I want to work on these issues that remain, the things that keep me from reaching even higher heights, I have to talk about it.

Logically knowing this and being brave enough to act on it are two different things.

~~

I feel joy, I feel love
Life's a priceless gift from up above
When I see your smiling face
It's like the stars in outer space
Shine a little brighter to show me the way
Through this dark path that I pave
Laden with my hope and tears
Simply because I feel fear.