"Fear
is not evil, it teaches us what our weaknesses are, and once we know that, we
can become stronger" - Gildarts Clive
Fear is a word most often considered a negative word, something we want to get rid of, something we want to overcome, something when lost is considered an achievement. I personally am proud of some of my fears and am afraid of losing them. Following is my perception of the term fear in relation with humans and a try to explain why and how fear is sometimes all you need in life
Nothing truly great has happened without facing your fear first. If you look at successful entrepreneurs or Olympic athletes, I'm pretty sure they’ve experienced plenty of fearful feelings, anxiety and stress before achieving what they set out to achieve. That is what makes them great because they do something worthy of fear.
History has seen the best results in every field when people are exposed to critical fear. For example, the Olympic 100m record made by Usain Bolt was never beaten by him again, not even in the practice. That's because never did he feel that fear and pressure again on the track. If he wouldn't have feared of losing, he might not have put enough effort to win it. We most often see the kids being more irresponsible than adults. This is because fear of the outcomes of dropping a glass or touching the hot iron is what makes us not do it. Fear of losing is mostly what wins you stuff. The most important addition here would be death. Today, in the modern world, the words survival and fear are losing bonds but if we consider ancient history, our ancestors, worked as most animals do today. Fear of starvation is what made them push their limits to get food, fear of freezing cold is what made them invent fire, fear of animals is why they made weapons, and ultimately, fear of death is what kept them alive.
Fear of death is the ultimate fear we should all be proud of having and always
try to retain it. Death is what makes you live and death is what makes you do what you
have never imagined you would do. Here, let me put a story I read, to
explain. Once, two men were on a walk discussing on how mother loves her child
more than her own life. One of the two did not agree to this. He believed one's
own life is always his first priority. Soon enough, they saw a mother monkey
and his baby standing on a rock in the middle of the river who's water level
was increasing, leaving them helpless to cross the river. After a few minutes,
when the water level rose and reached about the chest of the baby monkey, the
mother lifted him up in her arms stretched as high as possible above the
ground. Watching this the first man said, "see my point just got proved.
No mother can ever live risking her child's life" to which the other man
said "Let's see what happens". A few more minutes later, when the
water level rose even more to the shoulder of the mother monkey, she put her
baby down on the rock and stood on him to avoid drowning. This clearly portrays
that when we are really
exposed to death, we do what we had never imagined we would have done, and
the survival instinct and fear is what makes us do that and live. It's an
inbuilt mechanism in human brains. In
some cases, fear is the enemy of self-control but mostly, it helps us win the
war.Many of us let fear get in the way of long-term goals, and that's not good. But it's a mistake to think the solution is to overcome fear in general. You can't, and even if you could, you wouldn't like the results. When it comes to self-control, that instinctive feeling is going to help you make a wise decision. Rather than trying to drive out each and every bit of fear from your brain, try and let some of them settle, because you never know what they might win you. Properly read, our fears can offer us something as precious as the greatest inventions, plenty of wisdom, a bit of an insight and a version of the most elusive thing, THE TRUTH.
References -
