8.15.23 // The Fallacy of Fear

It keeps us alive, but can also keep us from living.
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Fear.
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A basic emotion, a survival tool from our earliest days as cognitive functioning humans. Keeping us safe from imminent dangers and predators. Fear that was used to keep us alive. Fight, Flight, Freeze... Survive.
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But sometimes, in the modern day, it feels like fear is less like a means for safety and more of an inhibitor to keep you from fully living your life.
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It's worth noting, I'm not talking about the inner knowing or intuitive "no" feelings. The ones we know deep down, the "I need to leave" or "I don't feel safe here" feelings of fear. Those are true survival instincts.
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The fear I'm talking about is the kind that keeps us from living the life we are wanting to lead, i.e. the fear of the "unknown." The fears that whisper to us to stay in something that feels familiar and "safe"- a toxic relationship, a job that drains you, a place you feel exhausted and uninspired in. These fears are the "unknown" wrapped in different words.
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The fear I'm talking about is the kind that keeps us in a chokehold of expectations placed on us by others. Afraid to be outcast because of societal pressure to conform. That fear that once held early communities together now creates layers of expectations around judgment often purely based on the way you look, and the way you act. And yet, when bold innovators, brave voices, and unafraid pioneers take the stage we applaud them, but us? We could never do that.
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That fear.
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What if we stopped letting it push us into survival and instead let it be the base of our revival? An opportunity to see the unknown as not something to fear, but to leap towards. An opportunity to see the expectations of others as a reflection of their constraints, not yours. An opportunity to do what you like because you like it.