(◣_◢)Poet said 10 years, 2 months ago:

why is it so powerful? one can argue fear is the greatest power over any living creature; greater than love, as the presence of love is usually accompanied by fear or defined by a resistance to fear, still, because of fear.

take a minute to collect your life around your mind, now ask yourself how much of your life ISN’T based around something related to fear. we seek attention and compassion out of a fear of loneliness, we try harder out of fear of failure. we grow out of a fear that we’ll stay stuck in some place forever…all because of fear.

courage, what is this other an attempt to prove you aren’t afraid.

how many actually live without the idea of fear in regards to their actions? i imagine that number is small. is it possible to live without fear?

i’ve thought about it a lot lately and realized that i only bother finishing school, saving money, going to work…and who knows what else, out of fear that of not having a future. which has led to me considering dropping everything and just doing whatever i want to get wherever i want to go, and live my life like it can end at any moment (which it can). but then comes to the fear, and i realize i don’t even understand fear, just as no one understands death, yet we allow fear to trick us into some idea of it. fear, the powerful idea, with a trick called death to make it seem more powerful, another idea (death) that we don’t understand but buy into…now i’m rambling.

Guardian said 10 years, 2 months ago:

Ah fear, the one thing that stops us from achieving what we “want” out of life. Ask yourself this, “What do you really want?” Do it, and come up few things that you desire, such as a new product, business, adventure, etc. I will come back to this illustration in a moment

Some say, “The difference between fear and danger is that one is real and one is not. Danger involves a real situation, whereas fear is just a mindset that holds you back from what you want.” I believe this statement to be for the most part, true. Though I also take into account the variable, which is the “want”. You see, the subconscious mind plays a part in this. We are all creatures of habit, and our paradigm – a multitude of habits – which is rooted in our subconscious mind, is what shapes our future life experience. The only way to change our paradigm is to develop new habits and feed our minds with positive thoughts. That’s the key phrase right there – positive thoughts.

Going back the original example – once you think of some of the things that you desire, your brain will either think of reasons you can have that desire, or reasons you can’t. Most of the time, “Logic” or “practicality” derived from your current situation, beliefs, and a culmination of all your life experiences will either fill your brain with reasons with the “why you can’t.” You want a car, but you can’t afford it; you have no friends, but you’re not good at developing relationships; you like someone, but you’re too scared to tell or approach them; you want a job, but you have no job experience.

Morris E. Goodman’s plane engine lost power in 1981. Goodman did all he could to maneuver the aircraft back toward the airstrip to make an emergency landing, but the plane flew through a low-hung set of power lines, and crashed to the ground, flipping over. Goodman was knocked out, breaking his C-1 and C-2 Cervical vertebrae, and was left paralyzed, unable to move from head to foot, breathe on his own, talk or swallow. All he could do was blink his eyes. His doctors, however, were convinced that if he survived long at all after his initial life-saving surgery, he’d be doomed to a short, meaningless life in a persistent vegetative state, assuming he had also lost all brain function. In reality, nothing was further from the truth, and Goodman began to develop a plan to achieve a full recovery. Goodman found a way to breathe despite the permanent damage to his diaphragm. After weeks of intense practice, voluntarily using other abdominal muscles, Goodman was able to take his first breath without the use of a machine. Stunned doctors slowly reduced the settings on Goodman’s ventilator until he was finally able to breathe on his own. Soon Goodman began working with speech therapists until he was able to utter a single word – “Mama.” After that he began to eat and learn how to walk again. Despite head doctors’ insistence that his spinal cord had been permanently damaged to the point that his left side would be forever immobile, Goodman vowed he would walk once more, and would be home by Christmas. Obtaining permission to use the physical therapy and occupational therapy facilities earlier than their programs began; Goodman continued to work to improve his leg muscle strength and stamina until he could stand on his own. Goodman was able to walk unassisted, and was released on November 13, 1981.

(Summary of Morris Goodman’s biography – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_E._Goodman)

Here is my point. Fear is a part of you, that you, yourself, must exercise control over – or else let it control your life. You are your own worst enemy; you are the only one standing in the way of what you most desire in your life.

“If I could some up my life, it would be, man becomes what he thinks about.”

Take the risk of obtaining what you desire most. There’s no such thing as failure, unless fear prevents you from trying, and you give up.

So I ask you this: What do you want?

Vivid Melody said 10 years, 2 months ago:

Fear is the expectation that something bad will happen and faith is the expectation that something good will happen. I don’t believe one can really love without understanding hope or faith. I don’t believe love and fear can coexist. When you love with a passion, you forget the fear. You take no thought for yourself or your own fears. I suppose you could fear for the other person’s well being though. That is true. But I think with love, hope is still always present otherwise why even try to help a person at all? The person must believe they are able to do what they set out to do.

It’s interesting though. I feel like there are two types of fear. I think there is the kind of fear that brings about something good – such as when you love someone so much you fear ever hurting them. And then there’s the type of fear that brings about negative results – like when we allow our fear to make us angry and attempt to control others. The one fear is more like a hyper awareness of the influence we have over others and the great responsibility which comes with that. While the other is selfish though still seeking good for the self (just going about it the wrong way).

Many children are care-free because they haven’t experienced sorrow yet. They feel joy and joy is the other motivator in life so it’s not just fear. I think people fear being disappointed once they’ve tasted sorrow but at the same time they may come to find it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be and they really are able to bring themselves through it despite the hardship.

Fear can cripple you and make you shrink back. Love expands. I think it’s all about how you look at things though as someone else already said. You choose how you perceive things. You can look at things in a positive light or you can choose to be cynical. In the end, that’s all we have control over – how we see things and how we choose to react to things.

Overall, a lot of things in life are predictable so we can weigh the consequences of our actions (wisdom) and there is usually always some way to improve our circumstances even if it’s just looking at it a different way.

beautifullyric said 10 years, 1 month ago:

Let me play devil’s advocate.

Let us take fear as we know it out of the picture. We know fear as an apprehension to something, whether it be an object, a human being or even an emotion. Yet, in the archaic language and past, fear has another definition: “to have a reverential awe of”.
In the archaic sense, to have a fear of something is to have a deep reverence and even a peculiar sense of respect for the object of that said fear.
I believe that fear and an overall discomfort can sometimes be interchangeable terms. For instance, I could say I “fear” the thought of falling. Yet, in all actuality, I have a discomfort associated with it. I do not respect falling nor do I revere it.
Speaking in a relationship sense, one may “fear” a certain person such as a leader or a family member. Perhaps this is due to a situation in which respect was gained through an unfortunate circumstance.
Just some thoughts.

Humanist Hope said 10 years, 1 month ago:

Fear and respect are not interchangeable.

I can respect something without fearing it, and I can fear something while having no respect whatsoever for it.

It often goes that there is a measure of respect for some aspect of an object of fear, but not invariably so.

So I must politely disagree.

Humanist Hope said 10 years, 1 month ago:

A person may fear getting stopped by the police while still harboring no respect for the same. They could be a common criminal, so they regularly break the law, they just restrain their criminal behavior while in proximity to an arm of the law, or otherwise some potential of being caught. That is a fear, but it is not necessarily a form of respect. A person with respect for the law would not break it, and therefore would not fear it.

Game said 10 years, 1 month ago:

You respect that the police officer has a certain power over you, so you avoid that specific altercation.