Whether you have an anxiety disorder or are just plain fearful, your life is being halted. The famous question of “what are you afraid of?” is interesting to me because someone is asking another person something so personal. Most people would respond with,

“Heights”

“Spiders”

“The dark”

“Snakes”

I remember a very wise scholar I once had the pleasure of learning from telling me, “You are afraid of what you do not know” before going in front of my class and reciting a poem I had memorized. I resorted to feeling insulted, thinking “so is he calling me uneducated?” I decided to shrug it off and go on with my day.

Those words took me almost 5 years to fully comprehend. “You are afraid of what you do not know.” What if I told you that all of your fears are irrational? The more information you learn and knowledge you have on whatever you think you are afraid of, will make you no longer afraid. Fear is a state of being, which can be defined as ‘an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.’

Many people’s lives are changed because of their fears, and will go out of their way to avoid what they’re afraid of. If you are afraid of heights and you decide to never travel to the top of the Empire State Building in New York City, you could be missing out on a lot. Inspiration, accomplishment, even a proposal if you’re lucky.

But what so many people don’t know is that with time, practice and knowledge, you can diminish your fears. You can rid your fears by doing exactly what you are afraid of, continuously. You will soon develop a tolerance of what you are afraid of, making it tiresome and almost second nature to do what you were once afraid of doing.

The poem this professor had me memorize is called “If” by Rudyard Kipling and I had memorized about half of it at that time, up until “Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools.”

This taught me that the things I give my life to will be broken one day, and I will choose to build them back up. Everyone’s life becomes broken, and everyone is afraid of something. That doesn’t mean we can’t pick ourselves up after falling and build ourselves up to be even stronger than before.

There is no need to fear.

Rest in peace Dr. James Foster