Do You Face Your Fears or Live Life Afraid?
This is always a choice. And the choice is always yours.
About the only certainty in life is uncertainty.
No matter what and how you plan, no matter what you prepare – the uncertain might well get in your way.
That’s because the one and only constant in the universe is change. And most change is utterly outside of your control.
This is where – I believe – almost every fear you and I face is based. After years of analysis, observation, and life experience, I’ve come to believe that the biggest fear of all is uncertainty.
But not simply the fear of uncertainty. Uncertainty is the root, the core. The real fear is the fear of suffering that might or might not happen.
Nobody likes to be in pain. There’s nobody I know who likes discomfort or any type of suffering – whether physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or any combination therein.
To that end, some people will go to great lengths to avoid any and all suffering.
Hence, to a greater or lesser degree – they live life afraid. And the fear they face is largely intangible, and not the thing they’re truly afraid of; It’s suffering as a result of the given occurrence that they fear.
Nobody – and I mean nobody – lives life without fear. And that’s not a bad thing. A little fear can cause you to think before you leap, speak, or do something that might go poorly.
Suffering is no fun. But like it or not – it’s part of being human.
Suffering conceptually misunderstood
The first tenet of Buddhism – the first of the Four Noble Truths – is that “There is suffering.” A regular translation of this statement is that “Life is suffering.” Many take this at face value – which is rather unappealing.
But when you stop to analyze the idea that “there is suffering”, you can see a different perspective. This is simply a statement of fact.
Face it – shit happens. The unexpected, random happenstance, consequences, circumstances, and more, will occur. They are outside of your control.
More than that, however, is the overall realization of the occurrence of suffering. To all intents and purposes, the First Noble Truth could be translated as “Shit happens.”
Recognizing this is one thing. Acknowledging is another.
You can recognize something, and then ignore it, disregard it, avoid it, and so on. Acknowledging it means facing and addressing it to one degree or another.
This matters in this instance because whether you believe in Buddhism or not – this statement is true. Shit happens. That’s life.
Some people face the fear of shit happening, and live life passively recognizing and acknowledging it. But some people are afraid of shit happening, and live life actively recognizing it and avoiding it.
Hence the choice – face your fears or live life afraid?
Living life afraid
The following might be controversial and make me unpopular. But I feel it needs to be written anyhow.
Being afraid is a choice. Avoiding what you’re afraid of is a choice. Keeping away from possible suffering is a choice.
I know a lot of people these days talking about triggers. I’m not disregarding that things trigger people due to PTSD, longtime abuse, and other factors in life. However – avoiding triggers leaves them as triggers for you.
This is the part that will upset people. Triggers are things you’re afraid of. Quite possibly for good reason, admittedly. But as long as you recognize them – but don’t acknowledge them – they’ll remain a trigger.
Maybe that’s unfair of me. But from personal experience, I’ve suffered traumatic things. I could still be triggered as a result of that. But I’ve made a different choice.
I face the fear and chose not to live life afraid.
I got hit by a car crossing a street. Just thinking about crossing a street could be triggering, right? I could spend my whole life afraid of crossing the street ever again.
With more caution than I had at the time – I cross streets regularly. I do not let possible fear of suffering – again – resulting from crossing the street stop me.
Fear is. Being afraid is a choice. Hence, living life afraid is a choice.
This might require therapy, and/or a lot of work – but you can choose what to do with it.
Or you can live life afraid.
Tangible versus intangible and fear
In ancient times, fear was tangible. Fear kept our prehistoric ancestors from getting eaten by predators, falling off cliffs, drowning in unfathomably deep waters, and the like.
But once human beings tamed the land, domesticated animals, and created tools that allowed us to overpower the predators – fear shifted from tangible to intangible.
Hence, most of the fears that people have are intangible. They’re tied not to physical health, but instead to mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing.
Most of that fear revolves around uncertainty. Or put another way – shit happening.
Then, to add one more layer to this – it’s not the shit happening you’re truly afraid of. It’s the suffering that might or might not result from it.
Society has become deeply comfortable. Most of the world lives in this way – and if you’re reading this, you are, too. What’s more, you’re frequently being sold things that will add to or increase your comfort and lessen any potential suffering.
Fear is a powerful tool. Some use it very intentionally – with malice of forethought – to try to control you. Others use it more passively – maybe not even intentionally – to persuade, cajole, and maneuver you to do, have, or be something.
Either way – ours has become a fear-based society. When you stop to look at this, it’s easy to recognize.
But acknowledging it is a whole other matter.
It’s all about choice
Face your fears or live life afraid? The choice is yours to make.
To face any fear, you need to first recognize it. Once recognized, you must acknowledge it. Ignoring it, disregarding it, and/or pretending it’s not there closes you off from choosing to do anything with or about it.
Once you recognize and acknowledge any given fears, there are tons of tools you can use to deal with them. The best starting point is via active conscious awareness. Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is active conscious awareness here and now. It’s asking and answering questions to yourself about what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are and/or aren’t doing.
That active conscious awareness in the now empowers you to take control. Then you can make choices and decisions to face fear, to face uncertainty, to take on your triggers, to have, be, and do just about anything you can imagine.
Does that sound like a superpower? That’s because it kind of is.
There is just one caveat to all of this. You can ONLY do this for you and your life.
You can make no choices or decisions for anyone else and their life – the only exception being children too young to reason or anyone in your care unable to care for themselves. Otherwise – you cannot choose anything for anyone other than you.
This is a matter not of selfishness, arrogance, or ego – but of kindness, compassion, and self-awareness. And you are worthy and deserving of being empowered thusly.
Recognizing the choice inherent in fear versus being afraid isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that shit happens that you cannot control – and suffering might result – you can choose to face your fears or live life afraid. Knowing that fear is unavoidable, but being afraid is a choice, you can use active conscious awareness – mindfulness – to take control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions to face your fears and not live your life afraid.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way to open more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you’re of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Don’t you think that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share?
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred-and-ninety-third entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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