We fear ghosts and the dark, we fear heights and speaking in front of crowds, we fear failure and rejection, we fear accomplishments and change and we fear fear itself. Is it possible that we can grow from these?
When I was little, I was incredibly frightened of haunted houses, I had to use the “chicken door” at a haunted house put on by a children’s museum. I was once so terrified of getting scared on Halloween night that I was crying the whole time I was collecting candy. I am thankful to say that with some great effort I was able to walk successfully through a haunted house (it was very recently but still), and I can now walk in the dark without crying, and I can even do it alone. But my childhood fears being conquered does not mean I am fearless, in fact my fear factor has merely evolved to become what some could call more encompassing. I fear rejection, failure, change and stagnation all at once and all at separate times, and those fears affect more than just one night in my life. The fear of failure can keep me up studying until I can barely speak, and the fear of change can keep me in one place, causing then my fear of stagnation to kick in.
Even though I now have appeared to become a fearful mess, the beautiful thing about this evolution of fear is that it demonstrates how we as people are becoming more than superficial. Fearing impactful things in our life shows that we are gaining depth. That depth means that fear takes more than a step forward into a haunted house to temper, but that does not mean that fear cannot be tempered. We fear these impactful things because they matter, and the conquering of them brings about true growth in our lives. This conquest can take time, this time is often referred to by contemporaries as growing up.
While we grow up and become people that can have as much impact as our fears, it is important to remember that one of the main catalysts of this occurrence is the fear we may have been trying to avoid. So through the hard times when the fear is collapsing onto you, remember that feeling them means you are learning to deal with them, and as this is done, you find you are able to temper and ultimately conquer them, making you stronger.
Teddy Roosevelt said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’, well maybe he was wrong, maybe it is fear we should be embracing. Because on the other side of the haunted house I can say I am stronger for taking that first step.
