If You Let Fear Control You, It'll Bring The Worst Out Of You

A great mistake we make during self-reflection is, trying to understand our emotions separately. It's true that when we feel angry as an example, it's hard not to just let that anger get the best out of us. Thus, once the damages have been done, we solely focus on our anger.

Yes, we may understand the source of our anger if we're careful enough during our examination. But it won't solve the problem. Eventually, someone will do something, or an event will happen, and as the saying goes, old habits die hard.

Have you noticed how malicious, vicious, almost "evil" we become whenever we're fearful? Fear is unique to us all. Some of us fear tomorrow, others of us fear losing our jobs, some people fear people's opinions, and so on.

While the object of our fear may be specific to each one of us, the pattern of fear itself is the same. Fear is a protective mechanism. Fear makes us avoid those experiences we registered as being "painful."

While most of us spend our lives avoiding those very things that trigger fear in us--and while it may make us feel secure even if we know we're not growing as a person--there are some people who are courageous enough to ask themselves why they fear, and if they can live without it.

This "piece" is dedicated to those people.

As we said in the beginning, once the damage is done, most of us can't get out our thoughts to stop thinking about our recent experiences. It's a time of self-reflection. But during our "investigation," we have the habit of only focusing on the emotion we felt during the recent experience.

And that's where we make a mistake, one that may relieve us from some pressure, but one that won't solve our problem.

And what is that mistake?

It's taking the emotion as a separate thing, when in fact, it can't exist in separation from all other emotions and thought-patterns. Anger can be triggered due to fear, fear is triggered due to avoiding an object that has been registered as hurtful, that hurt can be a joke to someone else, just at is a neutral event in reality, and so on.

I live in Africa, and for those of you who are interested in the news, I'm not, there has been many coup d'Etat lately. Whenever such a phenomena occurs, it's normal for people to fear, as an example.

Businesses, companies, jobs, institutions, and so on--everything goes upside down--and the chaotic environment gets the best out of most people.

And when we're in fear, it's ugly.

I've known people who wrote books and gave conferences, I've known priests who preached most of their lives, I've known "pleasant" people, who gave a good feeling around them due to their sweet nature, and more--who all lost it because of chaos.

Such people, who otherwise presented a great, charismatic, confident image--turned cynical, vicious, and cunning. These people who once inspired others thanks to their gifts of "acting," are now starting fights, reasoning without logic, behaving in a ugly way, and so on.

Their negative ways are obviously "attractive." Whenever they respond in a wicked way as an example, most people are more than happy to throw their negativity back at them, and start a fight.

While we may say that they're assh*les--they are--what is more obvious is the fact that they're fearful. This fear pushes them to reason poorly, as science has demonstrated it, when our instincts take over us--we don't reason.

And so we allow the ugliness that we've been repressing our whole lives to come out. This is why betting on superficial matters such as our public persona, our image--always catches us at some point in our lives.

It doesn't matter how much wealth we possess, how good our shape is, or how much of an angel we are to the public--unless we become responsible for our feelings and thoughts, unless we "know thyself" through careful examination and healing--what we try so hard to hide will come out, and no matter how inspiring or charismatic we once appeared, it will all go down and with it, we will disappear.