Fear

Fear, is one of the most fundamental and primary emotions that all conscious beings possess. It is the basis for the evolutionary fight or flight response that is triggered in times of extreme stress and when we are back into a corner. It is the emotion that has been hardwired into our minds and our very biology. It is quite possibly the most powerful and dominant emotion that we possess, most of our actions are done out of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of inability to survive, fear of stability and so on. Fear pushes us to act out in anger, in ignorance and in pure desperation. It can be argued that fear is the foundation of all other "negative" emotions or even the positive ones. When a person steals, they steal for a few reasons including desire to possess, possibly survival (food) or to thrill. Each of those reasons can be reduced to a foundation of fear. Desire to possess is fundamentally about fear of inadequacy either in monetary/material possessions or in social status. Survival is self-explanatory, no food=death and fear of death is the most base emotion. Thrill is the fear of normalcy, fear that one does not really experience happiness or excitement unless acting in such a manner.

Fear, I think is an amazing thing, quite possibly the most positive emotion we have because every time we are caught in its iron like grip we have the opportunity to fight it and conquer it. It is an opportunity for us to judge our own mettle. Do we give in or do we stand and fight, overcome our fear and push forward. There is a saying by Ambrose Redmoon:

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the judgment that there is something more important than fear"

Fear gives us an opportunity to display and know our own courage. Fear has the ability to overpower our minds and our reasoning but we have the ability to try and resist that, it is in using that ability we can conquer fear. As the statement above says, we will always have fear but it is finding something that supercedes and shines a light over fear. For some people that thing is God, others is the love of their life, others its principles or even self-enlightenment. Fear should never hold us back and control our actions, Fear should impel us towards venturing into the unknown and opening up new horizons for ourselves. Every time we conquer one fear we open up a part of ourselves that has been hidden or ignored and for that we gain strength and wisdom. Life cannot be lived fully if fear looms over our heads and controls us. Far too often we use fear as an excuse not to live fully, maybe it be prior experiences which have hurt us and left us fearful of pain or the fear that maybe the risk we take will leave us with nothing or severely limited. Fundamentally, we have the power to conquer and channel the fear into something powerful to fuel us. Find that greater thing than fear and know that to be you, then fear is nothing more than a hurdle to jump rather than a mountain to climb.