The most common of all emotions must surely be fear as it is an innate mechanism from birth of protection from danger or of the unknown. Its opposite may be courage, which is not necessarily the absence of fear but merely temporary control over it.
Fear comes in all sizes ranging from mild anxiety to paralyzing panic and terror-–as many are feeling about the current upcoming Presidential election. Among its symptoms we find dread, alarm, dismay, consternation and horror. Panic, mostly unfounded, results usually from overreaction and unreasoning.
Dread is defined as emphasized anxiety. Alarm suggests the surprise element incited by imminent or unsuspected danger. Dismay is described as deprivation of spirit while consternation heightens the implication of confusion. Terror is most frequently equated with violence, and horror denotes shuddering abhorrence. “Breath there one with soul so dead” that it has not experienced many of the multi-facets of fear?
It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt that coined the phrase, “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.” But this necessitates some tangible means of conquest or at least temporarily control of it. As there is no way to guarantee total control over our innumerable innate fears, the best we can hope for is conditioning ourselves that these fears may not exercise total control over us. We dress and insulate our homes and other dwelling places to protest us from various changes of weather conditions. It is far more important that we insulate ourselves spiritually from the onslaught of fears that we may invariably incur on a daily basis whether through man-made or nature-related sources-–or by merely using today’s multi-faceted social media.
Another type of fear, alien to most in this American “land of the free,” is reverent awe. Unfortunately the more self-sufficient we feel, the less reverence or simple respect we have for others with everyone and everything fair game. Late-night TV hosts, comedians and others all equally transcend barriers of respect for people, places and things with no holes barred.
With its many disadvantages, however, fear also has its advantages for without fear we would have no instinct to protest us from harm-–to ourselves or others. But these fears also vary widely and can be categorized as real or imaginary. The problem of assessment of whether psychological or physical is most critical. We are too easily controlled by our fears only because we allow others to do so. Through our ego we concentrate more on our weaknesses than on our strengths and therefore become cowardly through our own thoughts.
Let us become more mindful of the words of Nelson Mandela’s 1994 Inaugural Speech:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God! Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us; it’s in everyone! And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our own presence automatically liberates others!”
