Fear

                      Powerful word. So many people have spoken and written about fear but do we actually understand what it is? My brother once told me that every single thing we do stems from either fear or love. Those are the foundations of all human behaviour and wow, did that make me think. Not love and hate as I would have imagined but love and fear. My translation of that piece of information is that, maybe hate isn't the opposite of love. Maybe there isn't such a thing as hate. Maybe fear is the opposite of love. And maybe, just maybe, 'hate' is fear's son. 

                         The more I pondered on the word fear, the deeper it got. Fear is our greatest enemy and somehow it lurks in the minds of each and every one of us. For a long time in my life, fear held me hostage. I've been afraid of other people, speaking and frankly speaking, life. Fear was determined to ruin me and I had to make that decision to whether or not I was going to allow it. If I tell you I've overcome all my fears and I don't have any fear in the world, then I'd be a liar. Fear is so powerful, it's something we are going to battle with till we leave this earth. However, I believe that understanding and knowing the truth about the emotion, will help us, battle it more precisely. Stop. What are you afraid of? What is your biggest fear? We all have fears. All of us.

Photo: saskprocrossfit

                                For a time in my life, I was just scared. Now, I guess I was scared of me and in a way I guess we are all scared of ourselves. You know, when I walk down the streets, all I see are people just like me. Regardless of what they look like or what they are wearing or where they are from. So, I give them my smile. But very very often is that gesture returned. I don't smile at people to get a smile back, no. I smile at people because I understand that they are just like me. We have all the same emotions and feelings, don't we? So the cold response I had gotten so many times sent me to my place of thought again. Why don't they smile? What are they actually scared of? 

                                        If you take your fears and dissect them to the root, you'll find that its either you're afraid of yourself or you're afraid of someone (which as we've seen, is just like you) so in theory, we are all afraid of ourselves. How do we overcome this? I don't know. But I do know that we've got to face it. For a very long time in my life, I was a stammerer. A really bad stammerer. Hence, I was scared of speaking. The frustration of not being able to pronounce the words would make me burst out crying in the middle of conversations. It was hard. At my primary school I got teased and laughed at because of my stammering and shyness. It was painful, lonely and seemed never ending. It knocked my confidence and self esteem. However guess what, except for little stutters I make when I'm extremely nervous, stammering is a thing of the past and now, I love talking to people. I get paid for talking, something that was my biggest fear. That just goes to show you that overcoming your biggest fear brings freedom indescribable. But like I said, its a battle we fight till we leave this earth.

                    In conclusion, with your fear lies your freedom. Why do great singers have the fear of singing in public? Why do brilliant writers have the fear of people reading their works? There is nothing that saddens me more than seeing a scared child. Have you even seen a scared child? It's horrifying. Yet nearly all of us become exactly like scared little children when we come face to face with our fears. Finally I leave you with this; choose to act out of love instead of fear and watch your life blossom.

Dara Rhodes.