Fear...

                Fear. The definition is a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, or pain. A small word has such a huge impact in our lives, daily. Today, fear is what drives most of us to do what we do. Many decades ago it wasn’t fear that drove us in our lives, it was ambition. The ambition to be the best as a person or as a country was in everyone but we seemed to have lost that ambition and replaced it with fear.

                I had this conversation the other day with a few people about the fear verse ambition motivation and was told, and I quote, “You’re a moron. Everyone has ambition!” Really? If there was ambition, we have a whole lot more people being held accountable for their actions than we do now. Of course it went into the whole prison system and political realm but let’s keep it simple for today. The fear I want to talk about today is what we’ve come to face in our daily lives without even noticing it any longer. I’ll break down a typical day for most of us. The alarm goes off and we get up for work. We get ready and head out the door and hope that the ride into work is fine. Right there is the beginning fear moment of the day. The fear of being late. Bet most of you never looked at it like that before? That is because we have become so numb to it. If any of you have children, then you have to get them up in the morning as well and get them off to school. We take our children to the school or the bus stop and hope they make it on time and their day goes well. So now we can the fear of being late with the fear of or children having a good day and returning back in one piece. I say one piece because I’ve had the pleasure of the school sending my children home broken. Broken arm and broken wrist to be exact.

                Ok, so we make it to work and start our job. Depending on your job and where you work, the level of fear could be as high as losing your job at the end of the day due to downsizing or the fear of getting trapped at work later and not being able to get home to your family. Now we may look at these situations with a tainted view but ultimately it is fear. I’ve had friends that were working in warehouse work and get blindsided with the end of the day pick slip due to union issues or closing of the location. At the time they didn’t know it was coming but once they did receive the news, they now have the fear of going home to tell their families and the fear of figuring out how to survive without an income. For those that have a pretty secure job, you have your moments of fear as well. The fear of a presentation not going as planned or that there will be a mistake that will cost you a promotion or worse. The business world in today’s employment market is nothing but fear driven. Businesses have brazenly flaunted the fact that most if not any worker can be replaced in a moment’s notice.

                Fear in our personal lives is the biggest area I find for people. The fear of being alone drives some people to stay in situations that are just not healthy. The fear of making a choice with raising our children that may cause them to go down a wrong path is always there. There have been a couple of interesting surveys that have come out which some of you may have missed. The first one is a long running one concerning couples getting divorced. We have all heard that most marriages end due to money of infidelity which is points to the fear of being caught. One person in the relationship was doing something that caused them to have that fear. The second survey was pretty amazing. The survey was based on young adults and the thought of getting married. Almost half of the group surveyed said the will not get married because they don’t want to have to deal with marriage issues. So now we have a group of people having fear of something that can be a great thing if you put time into it. I’m not saying marriage is a perfect thing but with work and effort, it is a beautiful thing. Take a moment and think about that number. If there is anything I’ve learned about statistics is they tend to go up when the majority of people buy into something. With a few guesstimates, I would say by the time most 8 and 10 year olds hit young adult stage, that number not wanting to get married will be somewhere around 60%.

                I know I’ve been ranting on this one but I just want to put this up in front of everyone. As much as you think you are doing things for the right reasons, you may be wrong. I’m not going to say that I don’t do things out of fear. I make sure that the house is at least picked up and cleaned before my wife gets home. It’s not like she will beat me or anything but the fear of her being upset or disappointed drives me to do these things. I have fear every time I send my son off to school. I fear that there may be times he runs into a situation he may not be able to handle. I want us all to realize that living under so much fear isn’t a good thing and maybe it’s time to take a different avenue on how we do things. With the New Year, here we all like to make promises or resolutions to ourselves. Some of us go with the diet thing, others make commitments to work or home life but maybe we need to commit to not being afraid any more. Don’t be fearful if you make a choice and its wrong or try something and it doesn’t pan out. Don’t be afraid to tell your kids to stand up for themselves and if they get bullied to bully back. Have ambition to better your life or relationships and not be afraid to tell those closest to you what you really feel. This could be a great year for us all if we just take the stand against fear and the things that scare us.