some thoughts on fear

Fear is one of the essential emotions in humanity. Almost everyone experiences it at some level big or small. The feeling of fear can morph into so many others feelings of anxiety, worry, pain, anger, frustration, happiness, and even hope. Fear depends on the person and the perspective. Some people can be debilitated by fear while others thrive on fear, generally everyone is afraid of something whether a spider or the president. As a songwriter once wrote, "hands and feet are all alike but fear between divides us".
I have experienced many types of fear throughout the course of my life and still do, I have almost accepted it as a natural part of my existence. Most of my fear stems from the past or the future. Fear of what I have done in the past coming around to haunt my future, fear that some of the things I have done are unforgivable, fear that I am in way over my head in Graduate school, fear that I will never succeed in this awful economy, fear that my kids will grow up in a screwed up world, fear that I wont live long enough to do what I want to do, fear that a lovely lady would someday take her love away, fear that there is no heaven or hell, the list could go on and on for days. None of these however is happening right now, but they could happen tomorrow. How can you ignore the future and the past and worry about today knowing that today will have great bearing on tomorrow?
One day at a time is a catchy slogan but it is also a very positive way to live life. It center is based on awareness of yourself and others around you for a small portion of time trying to do what is best as if it where the last day we will ever be alive. This is how we deal with the past and the future, by dealing with today. By doing the best we could for today and then again tomorrow we can greatly change our future.
I get hope from fear. That may sound weird or strange but I am both so it shouldn't sound to out there. Fear is something I could never feel in my life. I would bury it and drown it out with a lot of drugs and a lot of alcohol, no worries. Today though I can feel fear, accept it, try to understand it, and that is a huge change for me. That one simple thing has given a ray of hope to so many aspect of my life to grow and grow. Feelings of any kind are extremely hard to deal with for someone who has avoided dealing with them for years. Its like starting life at 22 years of age with the emotional state of a 10 year old because of that avoidance for so long. So in many ways I am only a grand age of 13. The hope comes from the awareness that I CAN change, if I CAN change that I CAN change almost anything. A little hope snuck through the door and opened up all the windows. There are still things to be afraid of but there are know things to be hopeful about, the fear does not win out. For some people fear does win out. They give up, life has made them beleive that they can't do this or cant do that, they have come to beleive that there is no hope for themselves in certain situations. This is deprssion, when fear has been internalized as anger, guilt, remorse, hopelessness....I have been there too, like I said, all it took was a tiny bit of hope to sneak in. With each let down we start laying bricks to build those walls to keep hope out. Eventually we may succeed and be totally isolated but hope usually busts in somehow in some form or the other, whether it be a friend, a song, a sunset, a smile from a stranger, or a spiritual moment of clarity.
Call me crazy but I am a beleiver that we are all as humans essentially at the core "good" people. We may do things that are really bad but we are all good. For example myself, I have lied and stolen from some very important people in my life to get money to get drugs so I could get high. Does that make me a bad person or a person that is good but lacking proper judgement? And then who is to decide? the law? the church? God? or you? or me? The way I see it is we are all good and if we are all "God's Children" then we will make mistakes like children do...this however is no excuse to be ignorant. I get lied to all the time by people I am trying to help, their walls are up, they can't trust. If I can give them that little bit of trust and they learn to trust me hope can bust in and grow from there. A person has to beleive they can do something and we will return to our "good" being. It takes standing up to that fear long enough to overcome it one time and then sooner or later another time.
Today I am can be very afraid, because every thing I am involved in is unknown, new and intimidating, I have come such a long way into the unknown. I can live with that fear only by accepting it. I know that I am afraid I give it my best shot and most of the time its ok and sometimes its not either way I stood up and had the balls to take a shot. I said I CAN even if I knew I couldnt. Sometimes you suprise yourself and most of the time you give yourself hope and that hope can be shared with others. You dont learn how to swim by keeping one foot out of the water. Jump in give it a shot, we live, we learn and it always seems to work out if honestly you go about it this way, HONESTLY, there are no shortcuts in life.
So whether it be a job interview, a major life change, a choice that changes the course of your life, don't run from the fear, dont deny that it is there, acknowledge, accept and deal with that fear because the fear will give you the answer you are looking for. I fear a person with no fear for they dont feel. Fear is the evil, the good, the devil, God, faith, atheism, absolute, uncertainty, it is in almost every thing we do, its all in how we percieve it or dont percieve it that changes who we are.