Writing about Fear seemed appropriate so close to Halloween...

As I once said, this blog used to be just a random collection of my ramblings about daily life, the things that bugged me, the things that made me laugh. Okay, well, now that I think of it, it hasn't really changed much. But when I switched over from random ramblings to random ramblings about teaching, I took down the old blogs and hid them in a word document I have saved on my computer. The other day when I was practicing my activity avoidance techniques, I stumbled across this file and started reading. I came across one particularly spirited entry from a day when something had bugged me.

The story went that my dog, who, though now is very large and ferocious, was a puppy at the time, escaped my apartment and ran out into the yard where a burly man was walking from the parking lot to his apartment. Upon seeing my puppy, Jasper, he proceeded to squeal like a little girl and began running. Now, anyone who has ever had a puppy or even a full grown dog knows that if you run from a dog, he will chase you. So of course, the moment "the man" started running from my dog, of course Jasper playfully chased after him. I watched dumbfounded as "the man" ran toward no apparent safe haven from an animal that could not possibly cause him any harm... well, not much anyway.

Reading back over the story, which in it's original form was far more drawn out and amusing (even if a bit insensitive,) I realized two things. First, it wasn't Jasper who made "the man" run. Jasper was a 4 month old puppy who was more interested in the grass than anyone walking across the parking lot. What made him run was his fear. His perception of something mostly harmless caused fear... and so he ran. And secondly, once Jasper realized that, for whatever reason, "the man" was running away, it was nothing but instinct to chase after him.

At that moment, like a ton of bricks, it hit me. My brain started whirling thinking about all the things I'd been running from lately. And every single one of those things was, without a doubt, chasing me down. In fact, most of them were gaining on me because my fear of them was holding me back; fear that an attempt, no matter how valiant, might end in failure. Fear that pain might be seen as weakness. Fear of taking the next step not knowing exactly where it lead. Fear of accepting a challenge I might not be able to overcome with flying colors. 

So now, it's time to stop running. Running takes a lot of energy. If we were using that energy to run in the right direction, imagine what amazing things we could do. If we can just get past the fears that hold us back, chances are, the thing we feared isn't really that scary after all. Most likely, our fear blew it all out of proportion anyway and we had nothing to be afraid of in the first place. And even if there is something to be afraid of, there's no way around it so we might as well face it, head on, and on our own terms. One way or another, we'll work through them and past them. You may not always come out looking too pretty on the other side, but at least you'll be on the other side, with your fears behind you and no where to go but forward.