Over the past few months, we have begun the process of trying to make sense of who we are, what we believe and what morals, values and ideas we are trying to develop. Doing this, while sometimes extremely stressful and dare I say even aggravating, is an integral part of determining our place in the world. For those of you sitting at your computers week after week, cursing me to the fiery pits of the abyss for coming up with questions that make your brains bleed, please know that the reasons above are my motivation. Now, with that said, onto this week's brain blaster!
"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."
First, in your own words, interpret that quote from Mary Manin Morrissey.
Now that your interpretation is finished, and again, in your own words, ones that make the most sense to you, define for me the idea of "fear." It means different things to different people; what does it mean to you?
What is your biggest fear? What keeps you awake at night?
Is whatever your fear now the same as it was when you were a sophomore, a freshmen, an eighth-grader? How has the idea of fear evolved for you? What do you notice about the evolution? From where do you think this fear comes?
How often do you stop yourself from doing something because of fear? Do you ever regret not doing what you wanted to do?
When, if ever, is fear a good thing to feel? Why?
How do you deal with it?
A lot of scary questions, I know. Do your best.
(450-500 words min)
Unfortunately, the word “faith” is used in so many different ways that I had to search up “Mary Manin Morrissey” on the Google to figure out what definition of “faith” she was using. It seems that, since she was the founder of a megachurch (that closed down because of a $10 million financial scandal—[evil laugh]), Morrissey was using the most overused definition of “faith”, the one marred with religion; the one more accurately described as “blind faith”. Whenever someone uses that definition of “faith”, I get confused, and so I encounter difficulty when trying to decipher whatever the “faithful” person was trying to say. To me, the words have no meaning; they are fancy propaganda, and it seems that Morrissey blocked her “dream”, heading a megachurch, when she allowed her “fear”, the corrupting power of money, to grow bigger than her “faith” in a deity. Perhaps she is speaking from experience, but it seems to me that she should be more afraid of her faith than anything else, which is why the quote makes no sense to me. It basically says, “You block you dream when you let one fear overpower what you should actually be afraid of,” which actually makes sense until one realizes that the “dream”, founding a megachurch that encourages ignorance on a massive scale, was actually a nightmare and that it is often good to block a nightmare. So, in a way, the quote encourages people to block their nightmares with overpowering fear. However, fear leads to nightmares, so one cannot block nightmares with fear. The quote makes no sense and religion thrives in misunderstanding. This is why I avoid the religious definition of “faith” and the world “faith” altogether because religious dogma has tainted it.
ReplyDeleteFear is the evolutionary and personal adaptations that lead to an increased chance of survival in any organism. For example, impalas fear hyenas due to evolutionary reasons: hyenas have eaten impalas for thousands of years, and impalas not scared of hyenas are almost certain to get killed. The other type of fear, the personal adaptation, comes about due to events that happen during an individual’s lifetime. For example, Sigmund Freud may say that an eight year old fears swimming because she almost drowned when she was two and that there is a subconscious drive that makes the eight year old afraid of swimming. The evolutionary fear of dying causes personal fears, such as swimming, that may lead to dying, while others who have never had a “near-death experience” with swimming will not fear swimming because the evolutionary fear of dying has no effect. However, there are some seemingly irrational fears in humans that may be a result of irregularities in brain chemistry that do not fall into the aforementioned two groups.
My biggest fear is the fear of killing something, be it a pet or parasite. Every once in a while, I will find a tick on me, sucking my tasty blood. When I find one, I pick him off, assuming he drank enough, and put him outside. It makes me very pissed off when people kill spiders and other “bugs” (spiders are technically not “bugs”, but people seem to think that they are able to just call all the animals they do not like “bugs”). I have this fear not because of an evolutionary or personal adaptation, but because I give a damn about others and am not racist towards mosquitoes.
To answer the “what keeps you awake at night”: I am really bad at sleeping and my brain keeps me up at night. Often times, I will have a song stuck in my head and I will be thinking about physics, schoolwork, the events of the next day, and the events of the previous day. I will also be thinking about how I need to fall asleep, who will win the next episode of “Jeopardy!!!”, how I performed on a recent test, and perhaps I will dream a little, and usually my dreams involve me getting stabbed, choked, shot, hung, thrown off a building, electrocuted, buried alive, torched, decapitated, eaten alive, or slapped across the face. All of these thoughts keep me up at night.
I have feared the same stuff since I was a sophomore, freshman, and eighth-grader. The idea of “fear” has not evolved for me, it has evolved for humanity as humans first left the caves and became afraid of bears. Then, humans became afraid of bad weather, the death of loved ones, each other, advancing technologies, people of different colors, and just about everything else that holds people back from their full potential. I notice that this evolution has kept people from making the world a better place because humans are afraid of change. This fear of change comes from the early times in human evolution when change signified bad things, like the Fall changing to the Winter and all life dying.
DeleteI never stop myself from doing something because of fear because I cannot stop myself from doing something I never consider doing in the first place. I do not “stop” myself from doing something; I simply do not do certain things, like kill animals, such as spiders that do not bother any non-racist person. All I can think about when someone kills a spider is that the spider was simply trying to provide for her family. What is the father supposed to tell the children when their mother is stomped on? “You see, Little Gerald, your mother was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and a five year old human picked her up and ate her for no goddamn reason whatsoever.” That will traumatize the hell out of the little spider! Gerald the four day old spider will grow up without a mother and will struggle in school and grow up lonely, because everyone knows that his dad will be stomped on soon. Next time you step on a spider, think about the family you just destroyed and know that, even though that family cannot avenge the spider’s death, I can.
Fear is a good thing when it encourages the evolution of a species. However, when a fear is no longer an evolutionary adaptation, it most likely will not leave the species. For example, people are afraid of change because there once was a reason to fear change. When the reason for the fear is gone, the fear is bad because it serves no purpose.
When I feel fear, I deal with it like any sane person would: with tears.
If you desire to do something in life, either it’s attending a dream college, buying a puppy, or checking something off of your bucket list, you should do it. Do not let any of your fears to hold you back of that dream. Also, do not let that fear consume you entirely that you alter who you are, meaning changing your faith or beliefs just to revolve around that fear. That is why I think of when Mary Manin Morrissey quotes, “You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith”. If you let your fear run your life, you would not be able to accomplish the dreams that you have.
ReplyDeleteFear comes to play when you are afraid of something that makes your heart beat really fast, makes you really nervous, anxious, or stressed, or it causes you to avoid the subject in general. My biggest fear is the fear of losing someone close to me. When I say “lose” I do not always mean someone close to me passing away, but also losing someone from the past that I considered close with. If it was possible, I would want everyone to live forever so no one would have to say “good bye”. But unfortunately, that is not possible. That is why I like to spend my time with the people who I care about the most, like my family, friends, and teammates. I am also afraid of losing someone close to me because I feel like I am losing a part of me. My friends and family impact my life a lot, therefore when someone is gone, it is almost like a part of my life is gone too, and I do not like that feeling.
What keeps me up at night, especially when I was younger, was the thought of death. I would lay in my bed at night, and think about what it is like dying, being gone, or having someone close to me pass away, would scare the crap out of me. But as I got older those thoughts have faded away, until most recently. This same fear I have presently, is exactly what I thought about last year, two years ago, three years ago, and so on. I know death is inevitable and I should not worry too much about the topic of death, but I see it as a scary surprise, because most of the time it’s a sudden occurrence. Although my blog post might seem a bit macabre, my fear has evolved me into being a person who cherishes every day and someone who doesn’t try to take things so hard.
The fear of death is quite ambiguous and a serious subject, but I do not let it control my life and stop me from wanting to achieve my goals. For example, if I wanted to go bridge jumping with my friends, I will do it, (but only if it’s safe, because I do have some common sense), I won’t let my fear of death restrict me of doing something fun, especially if the event is on my bucket list.
Although fear is something most of us particularly don’t like to have, sometimes we need it to keep us aware of our surroundings. For instance, if you were walking home from a friend’s house late at night and you were passing through a frightening dark alley, if you weren’t afraid of criminals and murderers, you would likely be more susceptible to getting hurt, mugged, or kidnapped. That is why fear sometimes is a good thing, because it keeps your senses stimulated.
I deal with my fear of death like how most people deal with their fears: to not think about it. Although, I believe “not thinking about it” mostly pertains to my fear. Having a fear is normal, but how you deal with that fear is the important part.
I'll just start off by saying that this blog is so relevant to my life right now, just wow. "You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith," simply means that you can't fulfill your dreams if you have no faith in yourself and let the fear of failing, judgment, rejection, etc. get in the way.
ReplyDeleteFor me fear is like a robe made of metal- it weighs me down and holds me back. Fear has always played a big role in my life and I believe that it always will but only because I allow it to. One of my biggest fears is the dark but I don’t think you mean that kind of fear so, my biggest fear is being forgotten/forgetting. I don’t know if you've ever noticed this but I take pictures of everything. I am scared to forget the times when I was happy, since I often find that I spend most of my time being sad. I keep my happiest moments and memories in the form of pictures, I would probably have a heart attack if I lost all of the pictures I have taken throughout my life because there is a lot, probably an unhealthy amount. But the photos I take mean more to me than anything else in this world. Although many of the photos I have are of times that know make me sad I still keep them because they made me happy at one point and I think that that is very important. Also because I want that person to remember the times they shared with me and ultimately just not forget me. But, my biggest fear and what keeps me awake at night are two different things. What keeps me awake at night is the thought I am ruining everyone's life. I am not sure why I think this way but I do and it eats my alive almost every night. I'll have one argument with someone and it'll tare me apart for a month. I just always want to make everyone happy all of time (I know this is impossible but I cant help it).
For as long as I can remember I have always had the same fears, I never truly grow out of my most serious fears. My only real fear that I can recall growing out of is my fear of dogs, but other than that I have always had the same fears and the same thoughts about the way I think people view me. I think my fears started when I was about six years old. When I was younger I had really bad "abandonment issues" though no one had ever really abandoned me, that was just one of the weird things I had for no reason. I swore that everyone in my life was leaving me or planning to leave me for whatever reason so I would take pictures or make painting and cards and give them to people so that they'd always remember me in some way. I still do this to this day.
How often do I stop myself from doing something because of fear? Too often. I am constantly stopping myself from probably doing amazing things because of the fear of one thing or another. I regret many many MANY things that I stop myself from doing but I believe that I am getting a lot better with this. Recently I've been doing a lot more things that I don’t typically do and I've been more carefree which has ultimately made me more happy. I do believe that fear can sometimes be a good thing, it often helps me looks at things more rationally. Though my fears give me a lot of anxiety they also make me very cautious and aware which is something that helps me when I'm with certain friends that seem to have no fear, I guess I provide enough fear for the both of us. I don’t really think that I deal with my fears, which I should probably learn how to do for the sake of everyone. The only way I can get over a certain fear is if I'm forced to, I know that sounds bad and like peer pressure but its good peer pressure. My friends help me get over my anxiety/fears and I am very thankful that they do because I'd probably be so boring if I didn't have them. One of my very best friends has made me very adventurous and fun so since many of my other friends aren't very adventurous and are scared to be the center of attention I take it as my personal mission to brave up and be those things for them. I feel like that last sentence just contradicted this whole blog post, sorry.
DeleteIf you want to do something you have to believe you can do it. You can’t just want it, you have to believe you need it to be able to achieve it. You can’t be scared to do something you want, you have to go for it and let whatever happens happen because if you don't try then you will never know how it would have ended up.You can’t be scared to achieve what you want. It is okay to mess up but atleast you tried because eventually you will be able to fix what you did wrong and eventually achieve what you want. So the quote, "You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.”, from Mary Manin Morrissey is saying that you can't be scared to achieve your dream because you will never achieve it, you have to drive yourself to accomplish it.
ReplyDeleteFear is what stops you from achieving your dreams. If people didn't have fear there would be no such thing as dreams. Without fear we would be able to achieve our dreams in a second but since we all have fear, we are scared to achieve our dreams, making them dreams. Everyone has a fear because if they didn't they would be ruling everyone and in charge of anything going on in the world because they aren't scared of what could happen. I have a plethora of fears number one is dying in a car accident, then it's losing friends/ family from tragedies, and I am also kinda scared of bugs. I am so thankful everyday that I wake up and can say goodmorning to my mom, dad, aunts, uncles, grandma, and friends because without them I would be lost. This is why I am scared. One day I will not be able to say goodmorning to my mom, dad, aunts, uncles, grandma, and friends because they will have taken them from me and I just can not live without them. I am also deathly afraid of dying. I want to be able to live my life to the fullest and I feel like I will not be able to because something will happen before then. But the thing about my fear of dying is that once I die I won't be scared anymore because I won't be alive to be scared. My fear that mostly everyone has is spiders. They are gross af and they just creep me out and I always feel like one will bite me and my leg will fall off or something crazy.
Sometimes I will seriously start crying because I see a spider in my room because if I see one spider I think that there will be 100 more and they will all crawl on me and eat me, crazy thought but whatever. I also have an issue with getting in the car with people because I am scared I will die. I have gotten into some almost deadly car accidents with my mom and I am seriously so scared to get in the car with anyone because I never know whether I will get to my destination or not. Sometime I would rather stay home than get in the car and go somewhere because I do not want to risk something happening to me or my loved ones. I always stop myself from going places and it sucks because I have missed so many fun opportunities because I am scared to get into a car and go to my destination. Having too much fear is bad but having no fear at all is even worse. Having no fear could get you into a lot of bad situations. For example, if you are not scared to go into the wood filled with lions, tigers, and bears then you have put yourself into a very dangerous situation and will probably die. Rather than if you were scared and decided to not go into the woods then you would be safe from all the crazy animals.
DeleteI try to pretend I’m not scared so people don’t think I’m weird but it always shows. Whenever I get in the car I like to make sure I’m either in the front seat or in the middle of the back seat to make sure I can see if the driver is paying attention and not messing around, I am the most annoying backseat driver but it's all out of fear. I also make sure all my friends put on their seat belts incase something were to happen so they can be safe.
Ever since I was 7, my first car accident, I have been scared to get into a car and every year my fear gets even worst. In 8th grade I again got into a car accident and was inches away from losing my life. Last month my mom got into another car accident, all of these accidents not being our fault, and it just made my fear 10x worst. I can't seem to get rid of this fear and I probably never will I just hope that I will never have to see my death coming at me through my window at 60 mph.
Morrissey’s quote means that when you have more fear than faith, you eliminate all chances of accomplishing your dreams. Everyone has dreams to accomplish and with dreams, come fears. Everyone fears the failure of our dreams. Sometimes when we become too consumed with fears, we take ourselves out of trying to accomplish our dreams in the first place. We lose faith in our dreams because we see a greater chance of failure. Why try if we’re scared to fail? This calls for faith. Faith in ourselves, faith in the future, and faith in God for some. I define fear as something that keeps us from doing what we want due to the risk. Fears hold you back and restrict you from your goals. When I think of “fear” the first thing that comes to mind are scary movies, clowns, haunted hay rides, and spiders but, all of these fears are temporary or occasional. The worst fears include the ones that take us out of the game before we’ve started playing it. The fears that discourage us from trying. The fears that limit us and question our capability.
ReplyDeleteI consider failure my biggest fear in life. Although this generally includes any failure, I am mostly referring to fear of my future. Everyday when I get out of bed from 5:45-6:10 to go to school, I think about why I am doing it. When I go to school and persistently take notes, ask questions, to then go home, study, get no sleep and repeat it all the next day, I question “Will this even pay off?” Whenever I ask my parents “Are you sure my hard work is really going to pay off” and follow up asking, “But what if everyone else is working just as hard as me?” They always assure me that I will be successful. No matter how many times my parents, guidance counselor, or friends assure me my successful future, I cannot believe them. No one can guarantee my future but me. I have to constantly tell myself that my hardwork will pay off. My greatest fear revolves around failure. I feel as though if I don’t succeed in life, that I will not be happy with myself. Of course happiness is much more than a good job, money, range rover, yacht, or a nice house but, I still strive for that. I still have my current life revolved around future. It is safe to say that I am unhealthily consumed with my future but, realistically, how can I not be? They tell you to get good grades and SAT scores because good grades and SAT scores look good for college and college leads to your career and your career leads to how much money you make and so on and so on. Even though these things seem unessential to a happy life, they still create a lot of stress when thinking about the success of my future. My greatest fear is that I might not get into a good college or I might not have a good enough job to pay off my $500,000 in medical school debt. I am fearful that all of my hard work now will not produce the results I want later. I am fearful that my phone background that displays a beautiful riverside mansion will not become my reality one day. I know that you’re probably thinking “This materialistic imbecile, money doesn’t buy happiness” but, in all fairness, I want to be a dentist so my income will already be sufficient but also, I want to give as much to my family as possible.
My fear of failure started last year when everything began to feel in direct connection with my future. Before sophomore year, my fears included more broad things like cancer, death, never finding love, rape and other things. Now, when I look back on my old fears, they seem somewhat logical but now as a Junior, I fear things that could domino effect, such as bad test grades, bad SAT scores, and not getting accepted to a good college. Mostly, I fear anything to do with my future because I feel like I’m too young to make the right choices. I’m too young to know what to do with my life. My undeveloped frontal lobe cannot handle these stressful, long-term decisions. Even though when I speak of these fears to my parents they always respond “Jess, you have years to figure this out!” or “Jess, I changed my career three times!”, it does not change the weight of stress I feel. I don’t want to change my career three times. I’m scared to go to college and waste money switching my major three times. I’m scared to make major decisions. My fears evolved because I evolved. I am much more realistic than I was freshman year. Of course I always remained a hard worker but, I first worked for the intrinsic motivation. I worked hard because I am wired that way. I am the type of person that does extra credit when I have a 103 in the class. By Junior year, I now am working for the extrinsic motivation. I work hard because of rewards. I work hard in hopes that it will benefit not only my grade but, in the long term perspective, my future. Fear can stem from several areas.
DeleteFear can come from your childhood, your past experiences, or your current life. Whatever the fear may be, it still holds significance and relevance to your life because it impairs you. Fear stops me from doing a lot of things. If I did not have fear, I would take advantage of every opportunity that presented itself. Fear sucks because even if we know we have the capability to do something, we cannot find enough faith or will to try. Fear definitely leads to regret because the thought of “what could’ve been” always lingers. Sometimes I look back at past situations and think about redoing them. I think about how fear impaired me in past situations, and I should “never let the fear of striking out keep me from playing the game.” A lot of times we let fear get the best of us and that makes us regretful. Even though it seems impossible, we have to do our best to not let fear stop us from doing the things we want. I remember last summer I went to my cousin’s birthday party and everyone gathered around the piano to hear her and some others play. They sounded so good and I knew that I wanted to jump right in and join. When they finished and someone urged me to go over to the piano, I blew off the idea because fear got the best of me. I feared all of the new people watching me and not sounding as good as my cousin. I feared messing up or forgetting what songs I knew. In that moment, I did not have enough faith in myself or my musical ability to face my fears and showcase my talent. I look back on this moment and regret not getting the balls to get up from that couch.
In most cases, fear affects a person negatively. The only time I consider fear as a positive influence is when fear makes us question the outcomes of our actions. For example, a lot of people fear bunje jumping. (see what I did there bunj ;-)). Bungee jumping can produce many negative outcomes. A person is smart for fearing bungee jumping because the risks are not always worth the experience. It can cause serious injuries or even death when a bungee jump fails to go as planned. In times of serious contemplation, fear can positively influence someone.
DeleteWhether good or bad fear is present, one must learn to cope with all the fear our lives provoke. Even though fear may save us from bungee jumping or doing something stupid and regretful, fear needs moderation. Not enough fear results just as badly as too much fear. We need to moderate how much fear we let affect us. We have to decide whether our fear is valid enough to recognize. We cannot excessively yield to our fears. Similarly, we need to have faith. We need to nullify our fears and have faith in our future and most importantly, ourselves.
I don’t know where I heard this before, maybe it’s a quote but I heard this phrase “Don’t let fear control your life” multiple times before. I never thought about it but I understood the gists of it. I guess this post is making me think about it more now because it’s idea is somewhat the same as Mary Manin Morrissey’s quote. When people say “Don’t let fear control your life” it means don’t be afraid to do what you want with your life. Morrissey’s quote means that fear is what stops people from achieving their dreams because it is stronger than their hopes to accomplish those dreams. Both are similar in that they tell people not to be afraid.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I hate is regretting things because I was too scared to try. When I think back to all the times I did that, majority of the reasons was because I feared getting hurt or failing. I mean no one likes getting hurt or failing so my fears are not that special but these fears started young for me. Once my parents pushed the expectation for me to do well in school, I worried heavily about my grades. I know it’s just a number and I know down the road this number won’t matter at all, but I can’t help but be disappointed in myself when I get a bad grade. That’s why a good majority of my school life was spent making sure I got the grade instead of actually learning. I regret doing this because it is still a habit of mine to do this and I hate it.
Whenever I come across a situation where I’m scared to do it, I think about whether or not if I’ll regret it. Most of the times I end up doing it because I know I won’t regret it or I know that if I get hurt I’ll be okay. The times that I don’t end up doing it is when I know I shouldn’t do it. There’s a reason why we fear things. It’s meant to keep us safe. After all, fear is just brain signals and chemicals in your body saying DANGER! DANGER! and sometimes it’s okay to listen to this. It’s okay to be afraid when you know you are going to be put in danger or if you will truly regret your decision later on.
I don’t know how I deal with my fear. Sometimes I try to ignore it because I don’t want to face it. Sometimes I face it head on and decide from there. When it comes to my fears of getting hurt or failing, I try to tell myself that I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay if I get this bad grade because I know it’s just a grade. I know that even if I mess up and get hurt in the process, I can get right back up and try again.
Every time you fear something or have doubt you continue to make yourself become unsure. Having dreams can be scary and having little faith in them can be even scarier. Letting your fear grow larger than your faith will make you think that your dreams are impossible when really you just need to put in some work to accomplish your dreams. Your dreams will become “blocked” because you will have little ‘faith’ meaning you do not believe in your ability to accomplish your dreams.
ReplyDeleteFear obviously is something you are afraid of. You can fear animals, people, things, and even concepts. When you fear something you tend to do everything in your power to circumscribe what you are afraid of. When you fear something you distance yourself from it to keep yourself “safe.” My biggest fear is not being successful in life. Not only being successful in the work place but most importantly being successful internally and with a family. My goal in life is to fall in love and have a happy and healthy family. To not be successful with creating and maintaining a family is extremely scary. I have seen love fail countless times and I am afraid of that. I am afraid of losing someone I love and not being able to provide for my family. This fear has most likely been with me since kindergarten when my parents first filed their divorce. Seeing love fail and people so close to you have their hearts broken is a sad sad thing and I fear that awful feeling the most. Thinking you love someone so much and thinking they love you just as much back to then come to the point in your marriage where they do not still have that feeling for you seems awful.
This fear stops me from many possible relationships. When talking to someone I tend to hold most of who I am and the weird and wacky shit I do back. I lock away my heart and feelings because of my fear and although it can be possibly a good thing pertaining to the fact that I am safer because of it, however it stops me from growing with people. Being closed off can be a setback when it comes to people not getting the chance to know me until I am fully comfortable with them doing so. My fear has held me back from knowing some people however I accept my fear and live with it. I am okay with having the fear to love because for me it is real. I have never loved someone and until I do I will not know the feeling however I do know the feeling of heart break and a breaking family so I am okay with holding myself back from someone until I feel comfortable.
Fear can be good or bad. Good fear is when it stops you from doing something you will regret and bad fear is when it blocks you from your goals. The diction of fear is negative because it is something you are afraid of however there are always two sides to everything. Having fear for something illegal or just something you know you should not do will always be a good thing because it will usually keep you out of trouble. If you fear messing up you will try everything in your will power not to mess up, which could be a good thing. However, fear can also be a bad thing. Fear will steer you away from some of the biggest but most influential opportunities in your life. I can fear love but I cannot let it control me. I can be afraid of it but I cannot let it make me not want to try and find love. Fear can either be good or bad but when it is good keep it however when it is negative take it in small doses.
If you let a fear get in the way of your passion, dream, and/or faith, you are disrupting your path towards “faith.” If fear affects your dream, fear is controlling you. Fear can overwhelm you into making decisions you do not approve of. To me, faith is just like destiny. They differentiate in which faith is more of a positive outcome, where destiny could be both positive and negative. Although Mary Manin Morrissey indeed have an inspiring, maybe even life changing quote, I did not like how she used the words “dream” and “faith” as very similar meanings. It confuses me in various ways. Did she mean your faith is your dream? Is everyone’s dream their faith? Is Morrissey stating that our dreams are predestined to be faith and the only thing that can affect it is our fears? Because if so, life has a different answer.
ReplyDeleteFear can take over one’s life. It can be the determining factor of how your life goes. It can turn your life from a smooth ride to one with bumps, dirt patches, and potholes. Fear cannot go away. Like Ms. Bunje referred to alcoholics, you can never be saved once you become one, you can only be in recovery. There is alcoholics and then there is recovering alcoholics, the “alcoholic” will never leave your life once you become one. Just as fear will never leave your life once you develop it. Fear is not a one night thing. It’s something that’s going to spread in the book of your life just like HIV/AIDS in Africa. Fear will be stamped all over your life, as it will influence a lot of decisions you will make. The greatest fear of all is fear itself. One of the greatest presidents in the world said this in his inaugural speech, FDR. The fears of your fears is what he meant. Yes, I admit, I have that, but can I not say that almost everyone in the world has that?
My biggest fear of all is losing the person that brought me into this world, catered to my every need, and kept me safe throughout my premature years, my mom. After seeing death look straight into my mom’s eyes i’ve developed one of the biggest fears of my life. Some people can’t wait to move out, I can. I’m a true ass momma’s boy. I love my mom to death. I have thanatophobia, fear of losing someone you love. I hate to think that everyone will die at one point, because when that comes to my head, the first person I think about is my mom. My eyes water at even the slightest thought of it. Questions mind-boggle my head as what I am to do without her? Slowly and steadily I am trying to prepare myself for when the time comes, so I can be strong (because that’s what she will want). But I know it won’t happen, i’ll have break downs and ask, “Why not me?” After seeing my aunt go crazy at the funeral of my grandfather, I couldn’t help but picture myself in the same scenario. That’s when my fear began to develop. Then the plug was almost pulled for my mom, and than my fear became reality. We were lucky whoever tried pulling her plug was not strong enough, but now I am a thanatophobic. Death worries me. Not only am I concerned for myself for when it is her time, but what happens to my mom? Will she be okay? Is it going to be like she is just sleeping for the rest of her soul’s life? Will she reincarnate? Is there a heaven? Will God make sure she is safe? Is God even real (HINT HINT for my next OP)? What is to believe?
With this fear every decision my mom wants to make, if it’s too risky I automatically deny. And because she believes I am a smart kid, she’ll listen to me most of the time. And since I know that one day I will lose her, I like to take her everywhere with me. A good side to that is she as well likes to tag along too. I want to treasure every moment I can with my mom. I will never take that for granted. Momma I love you.
Another huge fear that I have, but felt as if it was 2nd on my fears list, is the fear of clowns. I am terrified of clowns, or coulrophobia. Sacrosanct to be more clear. Clowns just really have impacted a lot of decisions I make and that is why I did not write about. I just won’t go to anything related to a circus or anything I know involves clowns. I have been afraid of damn clowns since I was a baby. My mom tried to have one for my 3rd birthday party and it did not go to well. As my mom recalls, I literally ran out of the place bursting out in tears and was traumatised for the rest of my life. In which I was, because I am still afraid of them. They just look like they are all Pennywise (if you don’t know who he is, you probably SHOULDN’T look him up). They all look like they want to kill you. They bring balloons to strangle you with and big heavy shoes to stomp on you with. The face paint is used so no one will know who the murder is. The red nose signifies blood. The blood that will splatter across the floor after they are done with you. Gosh I am terrified writing about it, I’m finished.
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ReplyDeleteFirst I just wanna say… RT to Mary Manin Morrissey, and great name by the way. "You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith" could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people being that it is up for interpretation, but it means a whole lot to me. To me, this means when you are afraid and consumed with fear, you lack any room to grow or benefit from a situation because fear creates uncertainty, and uncertainty yields weakness. When you are uncertain, you lack confidence in yourself, others, or the situation instead of just believing in yourself, the other person, or that situation.
We all too often restrain ourselves from doing something because of fear. Fear is when you are the most unsure you could ever be about someone or something. You can be unsure of why that creepy guy is staring at you, you can be unsure of what will happen to you if you bungee jump off of the highest bridge in the world, or even something as simple as being unsure about what mom’s meat loaf is going to taste like. Being unsure and uncertain yields fear and we are all afraid of fear. As cliche as this is.. my biggest fear is fear, or more specifically, feeling fear. I never take for granted all the times I feel safe and comfortable because with that I am happy and content. With fear usually comes danger in many different shapes, forms, and strengths. Fear doesn’t have to be as severe as being afraid of getting murdered or raped, it could be something as little as forgetting homework, or losing money. Fear is fear no matter what shape, form, or strength, and I am extremely afraid of feeling fear. But, what keeps me awake at night isn’t my biggest fear. It is a fear of mine, but not my biggest. What keeps me awake at night is being ignorant of what tomorrow brings. Whether it be me forgetting homework that is due the next day, if it will be a good or bad day… ugh there’s so many things. I don’t like no knowing, and of course we don’t know what the future holds and that is what keeps me up at night.
The fear I have is the same fear I’ve feared since the end of middle school, and beginning of high school until now. But, I have to say that it is not the same as when I was younger. When I was younger I feared things more like spiders, heights, or clowns. My idea of fear has evolved into this never ending cycle of fear compared to when I was younger. Tbh I never thought of this, but I think this evolution has just come from life in general. When I was younger, I wasn’t exposed to many things, infact I was kept away from them intentionally. But now that I am older and exposed to many more things, I have more things to fear. I’ve obviously experienced more than when I was younger, so now I have way more to be afraid about.
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ReplyDeleteLike I said earlier, this quote is very important to me. It is important to me because I don’t exactly live by it… I aspire to live by it. Almost everyday there are things that I fear, such simple things, that keep me from doing something. Something as silly as being afraid of knocking on a teacher's door because the students might judge me keeps me from delivering papers in EPA. Or if I’m shopping and I don’t know where something is and I don’t have my mom, the fear of asking someone for help prevents me from getting what I want and more times than not, I leave without it. I often regret the things I don’t do because of fear because most of the time it’s something stupid, but for some reason I can’t get myself to get over it. I wish I could get over most of my fears so that I would do more in life but it’s not as easy doing it as it it saying it. One of the things I regret the most because of fear is quitting dance and being afraid of joining a sport. I don’t like attention or competition, I guess from my lack of self confidence, and being that I fear those things that sport involve, I’ve been too afraid of joining.
But, fear isn’t always bad. Sometimes fear is good, it’s a natural instinct. Just as animals such as dear fear humans. They fear us because we hunt them. To be afraid of extreme danger and to sense the fear in a dangerous situation is completely okay, infact it’s great because it’ll benefit you in the long run. If we didn’t sense and feel fear at least in the most dangerous, critical situations, that would lead to a lot of bad things happening. I deal with fear by simply doing the opposite of what makes me afraid. I know that isn’t a good way to deal with it, because it prevents me from doing the things I later regret not doing. But when I feel fear, I deal with it by doing something that makes me happy, or just not associating myself with the thing or person who makes me afraid.
Morrissey’s quotes explains that everything you know and believe is meaningless if you let fear overcome that. It shows the power of fear and how it can dictate your life. Fear is so powerful that it can make everything you have faith in to accomplish your dream completely and utterly meaningless.
ReplyDeleteFear is a strong idea; it can control you because of the desperation you feel when you feel threatened. For instance, people often fear refugees because of their fear of terrorism. Maybe I don’t fear anything because my parents and half my family are refugees and I’m constantly reminded that they are just people. Maybe I don’t fear anything because when my dad was arrested for not being a citizen when I was 12, I talked to dozens of families from all over the world and they are and seemed like just freaking people. People who only wanted what America had to offer; the saddest part is, they never got to see it. People who fear refugees often lose morality. People are just people. Anyone can harm. Anyone could kill. The fear that people feel are often used and controlled by politicians to make people want to shun them from America. It is crazy what fear can do. A refugee I know, my dad, even let the fear get to him. How could a refugee think that other refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan do not deserve the right to citizenship? Fear is crazy. Actually brazy.
I guess I don’t have a fear that keeps me up at night; nothing gets in the way of my sleep. But, I know my biggest fear; the fear of getting hurt. I push people away a lot and tend to have people always at arm’s length because letting myself become vulnerable opens myself to pain that I don’t really feel like enduring. Probably the reason I will always laugh at everything and never cry in front of anyone. I guess I started feeling this way my sophomore year and it’s been the same. My freshmen year, I was definitely nicer and let people in. Nobody hurt me like my parents did. They lied and left and screamed. Aw man, they just sucked. The two people I was supposed to rely on, I hated. They ruined it for me. Dammit, well, I’m good now. I’ve accepted it. People are just stupid.
Because I’m scared to let people in because of my fear of emotional pain, it is hard for me to make friends or let people care about me. I was not only pushing away pain, but all the good things that come with real relationships with people. I’ve done this for awhile and maybe I’m used to the regret, I just accept the fact that I forced myself to swear by my independence. I definitely know that I’m stupid for this, I just can’t really stop. I mean, how do you?
Fear is necessary to stop people from doing stupid things. Fear shows what you value. If everyone was fearless, they may never see the consequences if they do reckless actions. I will never smoke cigarettes because of my fear of its effects.
Dealing with fear, depending on the severity, will take time because of the strength of fear. Realizing why you fear certain things and acceptance of being okay with your fear are necessary steps to overcome fears.
The quote "You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith," simply means that when you let fear takeover, you're too afraid to do anything. When you do nothing, it's impossible to follow your dreams. Letting something or someone get into your head and stop you from doing things you want to do. That's what fear is. My biggest fear is not existing. I fear dying and just turning into nothing. If there is no heaven, then I at least want my name to live on. If not then, what was the point of living? The thought of nothingness after death is what keeps me up at night. I haven't always had this fear. When I was in elementary school, I feared the sun burning out. Looking back this seems like a dumb fear. I don't remember why I had this fear or how it occurred, I just remember being afraid. My idea of fear hasn't changed. My fears have evolved overtime, but my view of fear stayed the same.
ReplyDeleteI rarely stop myself from doing something because of fear. A few years ago I feared roller coasters. I feared roller coasters because I couldn't remember being on one. The uncertainty of roller coasters is what I was scared of, not the roller coaster itself. After going on a roller coaster, I realized that they weren't scary at all. Many humans are afraid of uncertainty, so they live simple lives where they know the outcome of their actions. I don't regret not doing something that I feared. This is mainly because I can't remember the last time I prevented myself from doing something due to being afraid. Normally when I'm afraid of doing something, I think it over in my head, and then I do it.
Fear can be a good thing. Fear keeps us from doing stupid things. Fear is what keeps people from cliff diving or doing other life threatening things. Fear also keeps us from doing illegal things. The fear of going to jail prevents people from stealing or killing someone else. The consequences that follow our actions are what we fear, and are also what stop us from doing things.
How do I deal with fear? I try to accept it. I accept that for whatever action I do, there will be a consequence. I accept that there might not be anything after death. I accept that every time I put myself out there that there is a chance of rejection and disapproval. Knowing all of these things, I choose what I want to do, not fear. There's no point of letting fear run my life because there will just be another fear once I overcome the first one.
Everyone has their own downfall, everyone has their own way of happiness, everyone has their own way of life, and everyone most definitely has a fear. I have mine, and I know everyone else in this class has one or two as well, maybe the same or maybe completely different. “You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.” Mary Manin Morissey is inferring that if a person was to allow their fears to overcome their life, they will never be able to live that dream they have. Forgetting about faith and accomplishing the dream(s) comes in play when a person has fear of any times of things. Failure, rejection, judging, anything, everyone has their own fears. Morissey is saying that you push away your dreams when you are more worried and feared than faithful and confident.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I think of when I hear the word “fear” is spiders. I am not even scared of spiders- it is just the first thing to pop into my head, most likely because of stereotypical movies about horror and fear. Fear is an emotion I hate to feel, something that makes me feel dangerous. My own definition of fear is something that holds me back, something that worries me, something that has me up all hours of the night, and something that gives me goose bumps. My parents hold my back, death worries me, love has me up all hours of the night, and feelings toward a person can give me Goosebumps and that doesn’t mean I fear all them; just means there is fear tied together somewhere. I fear my parents will always hold me back, I fear death of myself and my loved ones, I fear failed-love, and I fear ever getting feelings for another person. Google’s definition of fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or threat.” My definition of fear also somewhat means that as well; just in my own, weird way.
I had to think extremely long and hard on what my biggest fear is and I honestly don’t know. I have no clue. A lot of things worry me but I don’t know what my “biggest fear” is. I could say it is losing my best friend to cancer, but that isn’t a fear to me because everything in my body tells me that she is a fighter and I don’t have to think like that. I could say it is getting my heart broken again, but I know that is going to happen again, could even happen by the same guy again. My biggest fear has to be something happening to my loved ones or myself where I wouldn’t know what to do. My biggest fear has to be not being able to protect or help my loved ones or myself when I know I can. My biggest fear is being useless to my loved ones or myself when needed. A bunch of things keep me up a night, homework, my ex boyfriend, my bad grades, where I am going to go in life, people bullying my sister. It is never the same, consistent thing that has be unable to sleep.
Growing up my fears has definitely changed; I walk across the stuff I used to trip over as a sophomore, freshmen, and a kid in middle school. The idea of fear hasn’t exactly evolved for me; I just changed the things I used to stress about. I noticed that now my fear comes from real life situations, 2 years ago I used to stress over what to wear to school the next day or why the kid I liked wouldn’t text me back. I would do anything to go back to that type of fear.
I don’t really stop myself from doing something because of fear- surprisingly. I type a risky text, think about how stupid it is, but do it anyways. As scared as I am of sharks and as much as I hate the ocean, I would swim the entire Pacific if it involved someone I loved. I wasn’t always like this and I found myself regretting every single chance I didn’t take. Sometimes, being as risky as I am now gets me in a lot of trouble but it’s a better story to tell down the road and it helps me experience much more. When it comes to fear and being scared of fear, I just try to accept the fact that I might always be frightened of certain things.
I don't know why it is saying Dominique's name, it should say Heather. I let her touch my laptop and this is the outcome haha
DeleteThis quote basically means that when you fear things constantly and you try to avoid them so much that avoiding your fear hinders your faith and your ability of conquering your dreams. Fear can be an extremely overwhelming force that could be very unexpected.
ReplyDeleteFear is something that you go out of your way in order to not encounter. Fear is a huge force that is needed, yet holds you back. If you fear something, just thinking about that thing should bother you. Your fear is something that you would never willingly talk about. My biggest fear is death. There is so much that is unknown about death, it just boggles me. I dislike talking about death, but when I really get into it, I can’t think about anything else. It takes over my mind, which is not a very heart worming feeling. This fear has been with me for a very long time and I don’t think I will be shaking it any time soon. Some of the aspects have changed about my fear. I used to ask many more questions about it, but now I feel like it’s inevitable, which it really is. Maybe my fear has evolved because I’m not a little kid anymore, but some would still argue that I’m not fully grown up yet. I would say that my fear of death has come from all of my unanswered question. I guess that I don’t deal very well with uncertainty.
It is very uncommon that I stop myself because of fear. I really can’t remember a scenario that I felt fear in doing something in the recent past. There are times that fear is good. If you feel fear of doing something bad, the chances are that you will do that thing are slim. If there is something that you know is bad and you fear the consequences, why would you do it? The only thing I would do that I fear is watch a scary movie, yet I seldom do that.
Fear is a tough thing. The way I deal with my fear of death is by not thinking about it. If it’s not in mind, it won’t bother me as much. When I do think about it, I go into great detail. I really analyze every aspect of death and dying. But this just increases my fear, I realize new things that I had not realized before, and then I fear death even more than ever. I also try to live every day to the fullest, I know that I have a long life ahead of me, but why waist a day. I try to live without regrets. I normally try to suppress stress and bring out happiness.
A person will not achieve any of their goals with the mindset that they cannot do it. They must believe in themselves before they can even think about transforming their dreams into reality. Positivity leads to a pleasant working environment where a person can complete all the things on their checklist. Negativity will drag them down into a miserable atmosphere where all they can do is sulk and complain about their unfortunate circumstances. A little kid does not travel all the way across the monkey bars if they think they cannot do it. They must summon faith in their abilities and work hard to build enough strength to pass along the bars with ease.
ReplyDeleteFear is what stops people from doing something. A woman will not walk in the street alone at night because she fears a mugger or rapist. Another person will not ride a rollercoaster because they fear great heights, and falling from great heights. I am scared of a long list of things. I fear of being stuck in a job I hate, or not finding The One, or not being able to raise and provide for children. These types of things are just questions I do not have answers to now. I am sure every piece of the puzzle will fall into place at some point. But there are things I cannot shake off. After losing my dad, I could not bear to lose anyone else in my life. The grief and sorrow would drown me.
There’s more on that list, like a fear of someone breaking into my home, or someone raping me. Three years ago someone broke into my house. They opened our fence gate, threw a rock through our glass door, and let themselves in. They rummaged through my mom’s clothes until they found the jackpot, all her jewelry. All the jewelry my dad gave her, just gone. I will never know when someone has plans to hurt me or my family, and it scares me to my core.
I am scared of a lot of things, and they all haunt my dreams. People with guns hunting me down, strangers appearing in my house, jungle cats pouncing on innocent people. The world is terrifying.
When I was a kid, I don’t remember being afraid of anything. All of these fears came about from seeing the horrible things that happen in other people’s lives. I don’t watch the news. I might read articles online, but I don’t watch the news. I cannot predict if they will tell me another story that will cause a new fear, or add to my old ones. I usually just stick to positive articles. I am a sucker for fluff pieces. I read them and think maybe the world isn’t so bad after all.
Maybe I work so hard that my brain bleeds and body aches because I need acceptance and a full scholarship to a school I want to go to with the degree I actually want so I do not work a part-time job with no benefits forever. (Did I mention I am scared of debt?) Maybe I don’t express my emotions because people will think I am crazy and I will lose them. Maybe I do not dare do something fun with my hair or wear my nose ring out of the house because I fear people’s perception of me will change negatively, including my family. Especially my family. Fear motivates me to work hard with little play and keeps me from doing anything the littlest bit controversial.
I am a procrastinator. I avoid things till they blow up in my face. I don’t dwell on my fears at all usually. But then something pops up, and my heart starts beating, and I am on edge for a long time. I do not recommend this method. It would be better to talk through fears with a trustworthy person, in hopes they’ll guide you to rational thoughts.
To me, Mary Manin Morrissey’s quote is saying: When you fear, you lose faith in yourself or others or the situation, and therefore your dream will never be achieved. In the simplest terms, we let our fear get the best of us and instead of trusting in ourselves, we decide against taking that big leap to achieve that “dream.”
ReplyDeleteFear is different for everyone. I’ve met people that are scared of everything from ladybugs to heights, and then I’ve met people who have such rock hard exteriors that they seem close to fearless. But when I think of fear, I think of a specific feeling. It’s not always heart-racing, extreme anxiety. Fear elicits in me a tingling, weird feeling that rests at the bottom of my stomach and then slowly travels until all of a sudden I feel stiff. Sometimes anxiety kicks in, but not always. Fear occasionally surpasses anxiety, and then I’m so stiff and stone cold that my body physically cannot go into a panic attack.
I have a hefty list of what I consider “fears” and it’s a compilation of anything that makes me feel that tingling stomach feeling that I tried to explain above, even if I only feel it a little tiny bit. I’m scared of diminutive creepy crawler bugs/insects, public transportation, cafeterias, New Jersey drivers, youth that support Donald Trump, meninists, and the list continues. I can give some solid reasons for why I fear things like public transportation (I was always the odd one out on the school bus and now I can’t step onto one without feeling intensely judged.) and meninists (Get your disgusting superiority complex away from me.) but #1 and #2 on my extensive list of “fears” are disappointing people I care about, and failure.
I forgot to hand in my IR questions one time, and I was so afraid that I disappointed Bunje that I stayed up an extra 2 hours worrying about it, and the night before SATs I laid awake until 12 AM even though I was supposed to have clocked out by 9:30 PM. But I don’t lay awake worrying about my horrendous experience with school buses or delusional meninists because let’s be honest, have you seen the bags under my eyes? I can use all the sleep I can get. (Also, meninists are not worth more than my precious sleep. Neither are large, yellow school buses.)
I’ve noticed that as time goes on, my #1 and #2 fears stay the same. I was just as scared of failure when I was in 6th grade as I am now. And I just realized that the reason #1 and #2 are so prominent is because they’re tied together. I’m scared of failure, because if I fail then I’ve disappointed myself or someone else. And I’m scared of disappointing people, because if I disappoint someone then that means that I’ve failed them. What an epiphany that is. I’m probably so terrified of those things because I’ve always put pressure on myself to succeed and make people proud. It would make sense that I fear doing the opposite.
I very often do everything I can to avoid my fears. I avoid the bus at all costs, even if it means hanging out in Mrs. Kennedy’s room on half-days until 1:00 waiting for my dad to get off work so he can come pick me up. I also didn’t play a sport my freshman year because I was afraid that I would fail at it. I play a sport now, and I still fail at it, but it’s okay because there’s no one too judgemental on my team for me to disappoint. I regret not playing my freshman year though; I wish I could say that I played a sport all 4 years of high-school.
I suppose fear is acceptable to feel in life-or-death situations. If humans weren’t afraid of bears and lions and other large scary animals, would we be alive? Probably not, so yay for evolution. But as for my own fears, they’re probably irrational. Avoiding the bus is not doing me any favors. And my constant fear of failing really has held me back from trying new things. But quite honestly, I don’t think I’ve come up with an effective way to deal with my fears just yet. If I force myself not to think about them, my brain betrays me and thinks about them even more! Sleep helps, but with the amount of homework I have, I never get much of that anyway. So for now I guess, I’m stuck thinking about yellow school buses, meninists, and the occasional Donald Trump fan.
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ReplyDeleteMary Manin Morrissey’s quote, that explains how letting your fear overtake your faith will ruin you, is her explanation of how you can live a joyless life if you let every little thing become a setback. Fear can rear its ugly head in a variety of forms, it can leave you crippled in terror, or it slowly takes over your mind whispering the worst outcomes. Fear destroys people, it can turn them into monsters, and change their entire life. People will do anything when they are afraid, and they will do anything to protect themselves and those they love. I think the worst kind of fear is the fear that rises from pain. Pain that makes you feel worthless the fear that you wont make it. The though of losing my will is what terrifies me to my core. Its the things that lay close waiting on me to hit my weak spot. The nights spent tossing and turning because my mind wont wind down enough for me to sleep. Its not fun. Laying there counting how many times the fan makes a full circle… low 1,845… high 3,657. I guess thats all you can do, just wait it out count the spins of the fan until your eyes go dizzy in your head. Ive always been afraid of not doing well, of failing my predetermined destiny to be great. That was always my fear, to not do as well as I should be doing according to all the charts and the plans. Its changed now, now I'm afraid one day I might wake up and not care to even try. To just give up on everything I have spent my younger years trying to overcome. What happens when I no longer care about being decently smart? What happens when I give up, when I throw in the towel? I like my life plan, but at the same time I don't want it. Ive always been jealous of drifters, they just go where the wind takes them. I always run into the wind pushing my way through things. Making your own path is great and all but you shouldn't throw away random opportunities obtained out of nothing more than that, “right place right time” kind of luck. I fear that Ill let opportunities pass me by thinking I wont be good enough. I don't think my fear has ever changed much, Im scared because Im told to be, I run because I'm told to run. My fear still makes itself known but lately, I have just become more aware of it. I have learned how to bypass my fear to push it into the back of my mind. I jump a little bit more at opportunities that make me happy. I read more about the world, take more pictures…sometimes I skip my homework to go out to a new restaurant or ride my horse and stay longer to let him eat grass. I let people drive too fast with me in the car. Because the one fear that will always drive me to live is missing out on life itself. Sometimes you have to be willing to die in order to live a worth while life.
ReplyDeleteMy interpretation of the quote above by Mary Manin Morrissey is fear isn’t doing anything but stopping you from achieving your goals. You have to have faith and be able believe in yourself to get where you want to go. The more you let your fear grow the tougher it will be to conquer, overcome obstacles, or even begin your dream.
To me, fear is mainly an uncontrolled emotion you feel towards someone or something. You feel that it will cause danger or pain in some way, mentally, physically, or emotionally. I have a lot of fears that vary from spiders and fire all the way to not being the person I see myself as in 10 years (my biggest one). However, compared to my earlier years my fears didn’t consist of one like that. Instead they were more “kiddish”, like my fear of spiders and fire. I believe the reason for that was I didn’t have as many responsibilities as I do now. As I am growing older I have much more stress and responsibilities on my mind pertaining to my future. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or bad, but for a while now I have had this image in my head of myself of how/what I would prefer to be in the future. My biggest fear is not being that person and not succeeding the way I planned. I never really thought about where this fear came from. Maybe because I don’t want to let my parents or myself down and it happens to be the biggest goal I have set for myself.
Actually, because of this fear I don’t stop myself from doing anything, instead I find myself doing more because of it. I tend to study more for school, try to be the best student I could be inside school and out, help others, etc. I honestly can’t complain how I choose to live, I still get to live my life to the fullest.
I would say fear can be somewhat a good thing, as long as it's the right amount. In other words too much fear can lead to negative things, depending on your fear of course, but a little fear is ok. In my case, fear isn’t that bad because it only makes me work hard and be a better person, which is never a bad thing to try and be/ do. Without this fear I probably wouldn’t work as hard as I do and wouldn’t be changing to the person I am becoming. What we all need to realize however is that we should never fear too much where we lose faith and hope in ourselves, these are the key things we need in order to follow our dreams.
Everyone has dreams. We all do. But many of us do not follow those dreams because of our mind and because we are scared. The quote, “You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith,” means simply that when you let your fears control and take over you, you are ruining any dreams you have set because those fears are stepping in the way of your dreams. A fear is anything that you are afraid of that ends up interrupting a person’s life. Fear can really impact a person’s life and the decisions they make. What is my biggest fear? Well I have an entire list of fears. The fears that consist in my brain take over. They are the reason I do certain things and why I do not. I have tried to sit and narrow down my fears and I honestly could not narrow it down to just one. I have two fears that have been in my life probably since the day I entered middle school. My first fear that constantly haunts me, is the fear of people leaving me. This fear irrational. The people I have in my life are amazing. I have an amazing family and am blessed with such amazing friends. However, I am scared. I worry about if these people will leave me. It crosses my mind every single day. I know my friends are there for me, I know they are not going to just get rid of me or stop being my friends. However the irrational thought just blows up in my brain constantly. This has effected me in so many ways because I try not to get closer with new people. I try to stay with what is comfortable so it gives me a little reassurance that people won’t leave. Who knows why I have this thought. I have only really had one person leave my life in a long time and I am okay with it. However for whatever reason this fear haunts me but I just learn to accept it and try to not let it control me.
ReplyDeleteI know I was only supposed to select one fear. Like I said I tried, but the two fears I am talking about take up too much of my life. My second fear is the fear of rejection. This fear especially, has pushed itself in the way of any dreams I have ever dreamt or anything I have ever wanted to do. I am scared of being rejected. I am terrified of putting my all into something and being knocked down. I am scared of not being good enough. It sucks to feel like this and it prevent you from trying new things or things you want to do. For example, it took me about a couple months to decide to go to a soccer camp I wanted to go to in florida. Why couldn’t I decide? Why couldn’t I just go? I was so scared of messing up or doing not doing well. But I had to try and lock that fear away because I do not want it stopping me from accomplishing anything. This fear has been with me my entire life. I probably started to notice it in middle school, but I believe I have always had this fear and sadly, it probably won’t leave. Yeah I will learn not to think that way maybe, but the fear will always be there. I regret not trying out for a different soccer team when I had the chance. Not that I do not love my team I do, but the team I was going to try out for could of been just a better opportunity for me. I let my fear of rejection jump in the way of something I really wanted. I do not understand how someone could like fear or want fear in their lives. Maybe because of adrenaline? I don’t know. Fear is never something I wanted to take over me. I never wanted to accumulate so many fears over the course of my life. They suck. Being afraid of things sucks. It sucks because it can take over your life and stop someone from accomplishing their dreams. Even though fear is my enemy, I can not let it control me. Fear is something that needs to be dealt with, it cannot be avoided. But with fear comes learning and I will one day learn not to let fear dictate my life.
ReplyDelete"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."
Notice the last word in Morrissey's statement- “faith”. The word faith is similar to the words “Family”, “Success”, and “Journey”, in that it has no definite meaning. In fact, all of these words are meant to be defined and interpreted differently by the 7.3 billion people who currently live on Earth. Everyone has a different life situation, therefore the word(s) will have mean something totally different to each person. Mary Manin Morrissey, was the founder of a MegaChurch that closed 34 years after it was founded due to a financial scandal. According to her website, she is currently a life coach and motivational speaker. Hmmm ain’t that sumthin?! I can’t really go against her, because that was 11 years ago from today, and who knows, maybe she could have changed since then. At least I hope she did!
According to google faith has two general meanings:
“Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”
“ Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.”
It seems that, since Morrissey was the founder of her own Church, she was most likely referring to the second definition. Basically, what Morrissey is trying to say is that an individual’s dream ends, once he/she begins to doubt the qualities that the “Lord” granted them in the first place. If this is what Morrissey really meant…Well Gawwwd damn! I think I might have finally found something that I’m good at. Just kidding LOL! I suck at just about anything related to English/Lang. Oh damn... I forgot that I’m supposed to be working on my confidence this year! Sorry Bunje!!!! Okay, anyways, if I am correct, than Yaaay Me!!!(In my London Tipton Voice). However, if she is only referring to the general definition of faith, then I believe that she is saying: When you allow fear to control your life, you eventually lose faith in yourself, which results in the O’l “scratch and dent dreams”. You know, those dreams that you always wished for, but never really went through with. Yea. Those.
As I mentioned earlier, fear is different for everyone. I can’t necessarily say that I agree with Morrissey’s statement, because it doesn’t really apply to me, at least I don’t think it does? However, I can say that I understand the point she is making, because her statement actually applies to a few people I know. Over the span of sixteen years, I’ve encountered people who suffer from Achluophobia (Fear of darkness), Acrophobia (Fear of heights), Arachnophobia (Fear of spiders), KaylaHamlerphobia (Fear of Kayla Hamler), Xenophobia(Fear of strangers or foreigners) PEEP THE SAT VOCAB WORD THO!!!!
ReplyDeleteI have a few minor fears, like riding roller coasters, being in the dark, etc. Just the usual. However, my ABSOLUTE WORST fear is disappointing the people I love. Trust me I’ve experienced it before, and no lie, I was on the borderline of depression. I hate upsetting and/or disappointing anyone I love. It literally makes me feel like I’m a complete fuck up. Like I can never seem to do things correctly and I somehow ruin everything I touch. For example, my mom’s lamp, the dishwasher, the washing machine, her crockpot, and just about everything she has ever lent me. Also, a few blogs ago, well you probably don’t remember, but I mentioned that I am probably the hardest person on myself. Surprisingly. So when I fuck up, I criticize myself the worst, then next in line is Dr. Jeneé, then Cliff Hamler, and last but not least my teachers and friends at school. That is a lot of people to disappoint, and as crazy as I am I think that I disappoint them even when they aren’t disappointed in me. So I just create more stress and anxiety on myself. So, Bunje, now you know why I am so afraid to mess up in your class! It’s because I am afraid of disappointing you.
Anyways, I wouldn’t say that my fear of disappointing people prevents me from pursuing my dreams, at least not yet. Yes, it does create a few minor inconsistencies, but nothing to the point where I give up on what I love. That’s not me anyways. I am not the type to give up. I may complain, have a heart attack, die, come back to life, have another heart attack, and doubt myself a little, but trust me deep down I know I can do it. But then again, maybe I haven’t reached the point where I let my fear grow larger than my faith.
Gosh Darnniitt!!!!!!! I hope that never happens, because I’m not prepared for it.
All but one of my fears have remained the same since 8th grade/freshman year. Freshman year I feared of failure. I thought that if I failed, that was the end of it. Especially with school! I used to be so obsessed with school grades, that if I failed ANYTHING I would cry to the point where I couldn’t breathe(AKA hyperventilate). It was bad, and if you think that I’m crazy about grades now, then boy I don’t know how to break it to ya, but you probably would have thought that I was a complete sociopath. Now, I’m more chill about school (laughs). No seriously, I’ve gotten better, and eventually that fear went away, and now my current fear to its place. I have this feeling that my fears are getting progressively worse or more intense.
I don’t understand “faith”? My religion or my drive? If it’s my religion, I don’t have one so fear can’t grow bigger. It can grow bigger than my drive to become someone. Mary Manin Morrissey definitely knew what was going on. People either, give up on their dream or just stop seeing it. Sadly, I am going through this currently. I know what I want but I’m not doing what I need to. That’s scary and one of my fears. Which is happening right now. Fear is a feeling that penetrates your body with someone you don’t recognize. Not literally but you start to feel not like yourself.
ReplyDeleteAs I stated before, I am going through my fear. I can’t seemed to find energy to do anything. Work, stay awake, and chores. That’s probably every teenager but literally I have no energy. I’m writing this at 4:41am because I’ve been sleep since I got home. This is basically keeping me up at night/morning. I should have done my work earlier but my body didn't want to. When I was in middle school or when I was a freshman, it came easier for me and I had a drive to do it. Now I feel like it's gone. I don't know if I have a condition or there something wrong with me but it shouldn't be like this. I shouldn't feel like this. My mother actually said to me, about this whole thing going on with my family, that it is causing me to feel the way I do.
Usually I say to myself, “Alyssa you have to do this.” It works sometimes, then I stop 5 minutes later. It's all about the drive for the push that I have in me. I regret not doing a lot of things but what I'm currently doing right now, is tearin me apart. There's that little voice in your head at night, “this is wrong. This is absolutely wrong.” I blame myself because I don't listen to. I'm scared of failing and being the person that everyone asks, “Is she still living in Mays Landing?” about.
In some cases, fear can be a motivator and be a good thing. There’s stories out there that have made people do incredible things because of fear. Fear is this wall, in front of everyone at some point, that have been broken down or kept. It all matters on the drive. If there’s no drive, the wall will remain but if there is, it will be destroyed. I just hope my drive will drag me out of the hole I am in. How to deal with it? Let that little voice in the back of your head keep talking. When you’ve finally had enough, listen to it.
Fear is an inhibitor, it prevents people from doing what they want to do. I think that’s it fine to have a little fear, some people say that it even helps them, but if you have too much then it’s going to stop you from achieving your goals. I have many fears, many about the unforeseeable future, some about public speaking. Mainly, I fear the unknown. I need a certain amount of certainty in my life. While I may not be meticulous about it, I need to make plans and have a general idea of what I will do during the week. If I give a presentation, I have to practice it before hand because I can’t handle uncertainty. I could never be a scientist because they have to tread a path in the unknown, and I could never do that.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, two summers ago I went tree-top trekking. It was a really cool activity, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have. Why not? Well, before you can actually go on the trees, they have to teach you how to safely use the equipment and how to get back on the line in the case that you fall. I somehow managed to get through the lesson, but getting back up on the line was a struggle. During my time through the courses, especially during the hard obstacles, I had a crippling fear of falling. It wasn't because I was scared of heights, rather it was because I was scared of dangling in the air and holding up people due to my incompetence at getting back on the line. I was scared of the possible consequences if I happened to fall. I remember at one point, I stopped in the midst of my tracks and could not move due to my fear, which was pretty ironic because I held people back by not moving.
Also, for a while in the third grade, my biggest fear was what would happen in my afterlife. Do I go to Hell? Heaven? Do I reincarnate? Is there even an afterlife? What if it’s just eternal darkness, like when I’m unconscious? Will I just suddenly forget everything and disappear? These were all the questions running through my head before I went to bed, and I was extremely terrified. Actually, I’m still scared about it but I try not to think about it because it gave me nightmares and I rather not repeat that experience again. Hopefully, I won’t have to worry about the afterlife until many years in the future.
Moreover, my other fear is public speaking. This week we made two songs about cellular respiration for our biology project— one is based off of What Do You Mean? by Justin Bieber and the other was based off Planes by Jeremih Ft. J Cole. Kayla gave me a line, just one line, in the Planes song and I was too scared to practice it in front of her because I didn’t know how I would sound. I’ve never rapped before, so I didn’t want to sound stupid. It’s a really bad habit of mine to not do something that I’ve never done before in front of others. I don’t know what the results will be like, so I just don’t do it unless I’m by myself.
The Morrissey's quote means that when you let in fear in your head, it become a wall that restricts your will to achieve your goals or dreams. When you let fear grow,(like the thought of uncertainty in life and death thoughts), the fear will restrict your free will and block your path toward your dreams. Letting the fear grow, only holds you back from succeeding. So never let fear grow and always minimize it before it gets out of control.
ReplyDeleteI define fear as a emotion that people feel when they experience something threatening, scary, and stressful. When someone stressing out on a big test, that person creating a stress fear. When a serial killer on the loose in your neighborhood and you can hear repeating knocks on your front door, you experiencing a threatening fear and a scary fear. It make your heart pumping faster and get your adrenaline going. My biggest fear is the fear of choosing and creating bad decisions. When picking a bad choice, you would say “eh. No problem. Everyone makes mistakes.” I agree with you, but what if you feel that you almost always create mistakes. Almost every choices I made, I feel that it’s the wrong one. I imagine each time how the other choice I make can affect my life, my future, and my friends. The thought of that just creates stress and a headache to me.
From middle school to high school, I would wake up from a nightmare at midnight and I would struggle falling asleep again. While struggling, decisions I made or choses would pop up in my head. This creates a lot stress to me in which I couldn't sleep for very long the next few days. It just reminds me of how bad I am and I could have changes. The idea of fear evolved me to become more cautious and awake. When someone told me to sign something, I would read every single word on that paper and then think about it. This fear comes from my lack of self-esteem.
Not often where I stop myself from doing something because of fear. Most of the time, it involves wowing or entertaining people and I don’t regret it. Other people do a better job at making people laugh than me and it doesn’t bother me. Some people use fear as a good thing like when you want to feel the rush of danger and it could motivate you to do something. I never personally use fear as a good thing nor I want that danger feeling. When facing fear, I contained myself and relax. Then I considered all the good things that happened in my life and talked with myself. I motivate myself for about 3-5 minutes and do something that would clear my mind(like reading an article, playing video games, and watching T.V.).
ReplyDeleteThe message Mary Manin Morrissey attempts to get through with this quote is that one needs to have faith in their selves to move beyond their fears. If one believes in their abilities and knows they have what it takes to make their dreams become a reality their fears cannot stop them.
The dictionary defines fear as, an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. Generally I associate fear with the thought of loss. I’m comfortable with change as long as I keep what I love with me as I evolve. I have two fear that coincide amounting to my biggest fear overall. I fear losing people and not making something of myself which will result in being absolutely nothing. If I lose three essential people in my life I’ll never be the same so I doubt I’ll have the same motivations to become anything that I truly want to be or anything at all and in turn I’ll be nothing. This is simply a hypothetical fear but nonetheless a crippling one. Just the thought of losing any of these three people makes me feel sick to my stomach causes me to tear up.
Undoubtedly, my fears have changed. To fear the loss of a person means that you truly love them and back eighth grade the only devastating loss would’ve been Emily. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as close to the other person and wasn’t even aware of the other ones existence. Back then the only thing I feared was rollercoasters and Emily’s little sister if it was dark inside. The idea of fear has changed so drastically now because I care so much more. My fear doesn’t come from past experiences because I know I‘ve never loved anyone more that Emily, Justin, and Nina. This fear descends from being a champion over thinker and constant worry-wort. I never stop myself from doing things to assure myself this fear won’t happen because I know it’s not up to me. I try to do everything right to make sure the opposite doesn’t happen. I do however try my hardest to protect them. Mostly, Justin because he’s right here at home. Anything that he wants to do that seems the slightest bit sketchy I triple check ad make sure his phone is all the way charged and I know exactly where he is.
Fear can create adrenaline rushes. Adrenaline rushes have saved people in many cases. They have given individuals “super strength” only for the moment of course. Snooki from Jersey Shore was out “quadding” with her friend when her friend’s quad flipped and landed on top of her friend. What The Snookster described as “some fuckin super human strength” was just an adrenaline rush caused by the fear of her friend being hurt. Snooki ran over and pushed the quad off of her friend. The typical weight of a quad is 300lbs to 400lbs. Snooki is only 4’8 and most likely less than 150lbs. Instances such as this are the only way I see fear as a good thing. Too often people allow their fears to block their paths to success, just as triple M stated earlier.
More often than not I’ll completely ignore my fear. Since it is one of over thinking if I can manage preoccupy myself I will or I’ll just spend time with these people. Usually, I’ll FaceTime Em, wrestle with Justin, and bug the hell out of Nina.
Oh, how I wish that I could live a life without fears. But alas, it was just not meant to be. Honestly, I don’t think that there is a single person in this world that lives fear free. And although, I still dream about the day where I wake up and feel as if I can conquer the world, I know that it will never happen in this lifetime or the next.
ReplyDeleteWhat Ms. Mary Manin Morrissey is trying to convey by her quote, at least in my opinion, is that once you fully succumb to your fears and allow them to consume your mind in its entirety, then it is almost impossible to reach your dreams and hopes because your fears are holding back and restricting the faith that you have for yourself from shining through. And even if the word “faith” in this text has to do with religion, I’m going to pretend that it doesn’t because I’m not really a religious person.
And how does one define fear? I know that it has to do with being afraid of something so much and one usually tries to avoid it. But can you really, truly define it? Fear is an emotion, and one cannot simply define an emotion that they feel. They can only describe it. To me, fear feels as if you are drowning and the open air is only a few inches away. When you’re so close to the surface and are almost there but something pulls you down again. Which that itself can be another way to describe Morrissey’s words. Reaching for the breathable air is your dream and the water rushing into your lungs is your fear.
If you’re in my class then you already know my biggest fear. But I also have many fears that are centimeters away from the top spot. The only reason that my ultimate fear is number one is because I know that there is absolutely no way for me to conquer it and get over it. Unless I die. So instead, we’ll discuss my other fear that can be considered a close second to my unbeatable one.
My second biggest fear is to grow up and simply become a failure in life. Not a failure in school, or work, but in life. I stay awake in the midst of the night wondering how my life is going to plan out in the next ten, fifteen, twenty years I can think of. I don’t want to have a failing life. And not failing as in not having a job or becoming a hobo. I mean having a boring, dead-end nine to five job, a loveless marriage, kids who rather be at school than at home, and no excitement or motivation to continue living. There’s obviously more things that I constitute as “failing” but these are just the main ones.
This fear didn’t really start the way it did. In an old blog post, I wrote how I was afraid of failure also, but that was more in the terms of school and how well I perform in it. That fear started when I was young. But this fear is just an evolved form of the other. And I know it. It evolved over the course of time and hit me right at the end of sophomore year when I realized that I had to get my life together since I only had two more years of high school. And when the fear of being a failure in school died out, the fear of failing in life came alive.
DeleteI’m the type of person who always plans everything I say in my head before the situation ever happens because I don’t like to mess up. I plan out conversations and confrontations just so I can have every aspect covered in case a surprise appears and I’m ready. But I can’t prepare what I’m going to do. I can’t predict the future, and as senior year gets closer and closer, my fear grows. It grows because I don’t believe that I’ll ever be ready for life outside of high school and maybe even college. Life passes by quicker than you can ever imagine and as I keep thinking about the best life I want to have in the future, I fear the worst and hope that it won’t be like the lives of people that I see around me.
However, although I may be a frightened seventeen-year-old, this fear of failing in life doesn’t stop me from what I’m doing right now. I’d like the think that because my fear deals with the future and right now’s the present. And when the future becomes the present then I’ll deal with my fear then. And maybe in the future’s future I’ll regret the stuff that I didn’t do and the words that I didn’t say because of my fear and then will learn to overcome it, but since it doesn’t really apply to me at this very moment, I really have nothing to be afraid of.
Fear is only a good thing when you know that having it can save your life. Let’s say one day your friends want to go skydiving but you don’t because your fear of heights doesn’t allow you to. That fear can be a good thing then because there’s a could have been a chance that your parachute wouldn’t have worked if you did consider to go. If and only then do I think that fear is reasonable.
And you may ask, how do you get over your fear? Well, my friend, you don’t. At least in my opinion anyways. You can’t get over your fears because they are a part of you. The may be sometimes irrational, but there is a reason that you have them. For whatever it is, the only reason you have fears is because something in your life or mind is keeping you away from something. Your fears are based on the way you grew up and the way you see things. So you can’t get rid of them by ignoring them. You can only overcome them. Which by the way overcoming isn’t getting rid of; it’s conquering.
Mary Manin Morrissey said, “You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith”. The way I interpreted Morrissey’s quote: When you’re trying to accomplish and reach your dream(s) that you have planned, you will make your dream become quixotic when you allow your fear to stand in your way. If you allow your fear to take over you, the dream you have set for yourself will become either extremely hard or impossible to reach.
ReplyDeleteFear. Fear when the word first lingers in my mind is like the midnight sky: completely dark. Then after forcing myself to truly think so I can do Bunje’s blog, and not make her want to kill me for not answering, I become enlightened. Fear to me mirrors anxiety. Both anxiety and fear impregnate your goals, and are the roadblock. Fear: a feeling that someone feels that literally will give your body goosebumps. A feeling that something will cause you pain, harm, or is a threat. Something that in the end you will want to cry or forever have anxiety.
I have come to the conclusion that in my life, I have at least 50 fears. At first I became frantic when Ms. Bunje asked, “What is your biggest fear?” I automatically thought, “Shit, what am I going to say? “But then after a couple of hyperventilating deep breaths, I thought “Ang, you are just working yourself up, just talk about your fear of the dark.” So today my friends, I am going to take about my abnormal fear of the dark, but the darkness while in the house not outside. Typically as children we are pretty much automatically scared of the dark. And by the time you hit adolescence in most cases fear of the dark goes away. Again, I said in most cases. In MY case, I am TERRIFIED of the dark. Growing up I was brought up with two older sisters, (my god sisters), my little brother, my mom and my Aunt Kim, (My mom’s best friend, and my God- Mom). My God- Family is in love with scary movies. Like every movie night we had, we typically watched ghost movies. I am fascinated with the afterlife, and the unseen, I absolutely love it. But I hate after I watch it. I automatically get paranoid with everything going on around me. Pretty much everything bad happens in the middle of the night, when it’s dark out… So like in the movie bad things happening in the dark, it has transferred into my life. Not that bad things occur to me while it’s dark out, just the sense of something bad happening is embedded into me.
What keeps me up at night isn’t my fear. The horrible insomnia I have, is what keeps me up at night. My brain keeps me up. I overthink everything. I mean EVERYTHING. I constantly am thinking of everything in life, on occasion I even catch myself thinking about the names I want to name my children and dogs when I get older. Besides that, the fear I have about the dark has stuck with me since I was little. It just hasn’t gone away. It hasn’t always been super bad, it has gotten better from when I was 10 years old. I now can sleep without a nightlight, I know how embarrassing. And also when I’m coming up the stairs on occasion I don’t sprint up so I can get out of the dark, I walk up quickly, so that’s a plus. I think my fear of the dark is mainly because of all the scary movies I’ve watched.
My embarrassing fear of the dark hasn’t really held me back from doing anything. I mean sometimes I can’t go downstairs and get my friends a drink, but that’s just really about it. I don’t regret anything that my fear holds me back from. Sometimes it’s a good thing. It prevents me from doing anything stupid. How I deal with my fear: I do nothing.
Dreams and fears are the most powerful obstacles in one's life. Everyone has a dream or wish they have to work for to come true but there is always that underlying factor of “what if I can’t do it”, or in other words, failure. Mary Manin Morrissey is saying you have to step out of your comfort zone in order for life to truly began. Dreams are stretches that are capable to reach if you believe in yourself and your faith to accomplish them. God wouldn’t of put the dream in your heart if he had not already given you everything you need to fulfil it. So when fear comes into play, you sike yourself out from reaching your dream. If you 2nd guess yourself and don’t have the confidence to believe, your dreams will never come true.
ReplyDeleteTo me fear is when you lack self confidence. Confidence will always be key in any success and fear is the reason people don’t have confidence. To me fear is falling in reverse. In 8th grade I cried when people would talk about how I used to look or things I did in the past and I really don’t know why I would cry about something like that but I just never wanted people to remember me as a girl that never improved. It applies to all things. I get so worked up about not improving on a test or after a game we lost in overtime that I stress myself out. I worry so much about building myself which I don’t think is a bad thing but sometimes blocks me from believing in myself. I picture everything ahead of time and I go crazy with the “what if” question. I have confidence but I’m scared one day I’ll be the one that takes it away from me. Going downhill has always been my #1 fear since forever. Like I said I would cry in 8th grade about it to people at school. Of course I was afraid of being raped or seeing something horrible happen to someone because who wouldn’t? Especially in our cruel world. Also, another fear of mine is not being able to have kids. I really want a family so bad and I sound so crazy but it's my number 1 goal (obviously when I’m older) but I can’t wait to raise my own children and if I’m ever not able to I will have endless emotional breakdowns. You would peep me adopting a new child every year. Its sad to say I always stop myself from doing what I think is right because I’m scared that others will disagree. That statement is so messed up but most of the time I put others before myself to the point my fear of that never shows. It's technically not a “fear” but eventually I do regret not doing what makes me happy because it's a build up of nonsense that can never be fixed. Overall my fear is letting go of myself and not being able to find myself again.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I completely agree with Morrissey’s quote. It means if we allow ourselves to become so focused on our fears and let it consume us, it will get in the way of achieving our goal(s)/dream(s) and miss some great opportunities along the way. Fears blind us from what’s important to us and devours us into negative emotions or feelings. I believe everyone has fears. But damn some are good at hiding them; I respect that. It shows that they have bravery and/or just good at hiding things. However, fearing is an emotion that is hard to avoid. You can face them and learn to not fear of those fears again but there will always be a fear lurking inside you.
As for myself, I have two fears that seem to be at par with each other as my biggest fear. First one it is the fear of failure. Failing captures a huge chunk of my confidence, which may be the reason of why I lack confidence. It scares me that if and when I fail, I will disappoint someone; myself as well. Resulting in failure consists of emotions such as: regret, frustration, anger, disappointment, confusion and shame. The mix of all these emotions ruin my motivation to do better next time. I feel like failing will have a negative impact of my future. Most sources say that failure is a good thing only if you learn from it. I can agree. Moving on from it is hard for me though, since I have a problem of letting things go.
The second fear I deal with is the fear of public speaking. This has been a huge problem in my life. When there’s a class project that involves standing up in front of the whole class or when I am telling a story to a couple people or more, etc. my heart drops, I feel hot, have butterflies and blank out. My assumption for this is because I have low-self esteem. As I’m on the spot, I have the feeling that if I say or do something odd, everyone will judge me. When I was in 8th grade, I had to memorize and present Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to the whole 8th grade class. ( I was in a private school so the number of students weren’t as big as public schools. There were about 35 students all together.) I was pretty confident that I would remember everything but nervous for presenting. Hearing the teacher call my name, my heart was racing. As I was going up to the podium, my heart was pounding out of my chest and I was feeling those sensations as I listed before. I said the first 8 words “Four score and seven years ago our fathers……..”, and then there was a pause. A pause of me trying to think of the next words and next thing I know it’s been a minute of my classmates whispering and giggling. So, I left the podium, walking briskly to my seat to take cover. i will never forget this. Ever since this, I thought about that for whenever I had to memorize and present someone’s work to a class.
These two fears have stayed with me for long time in my life. I don’t think they’ll go away anytime soon but I’m putting the effort in overcoming them. I go to bed in deep thought about my fears, thinking about both the negative and positive impacts they bring to my life and how I dealt with them. I have thought about where these fears came from and it came down to be having low self-esteem in myself resulting from other people’s criticism and judgement. I hate to say that I care about what all lot of people think about me in what I say or do. I get that I shouldn’t and I should just do me. I really wish it could be that simple for me to do but it’s not sometimes.However, I try to put forth the effort.
My fears have got in the way of many things I could have successfully in my life and of course, I had regrets. Regrets that I cannot change but learn from and move on. I think that fears are neutral; good and bad. A source says “it’s how we channel it” that determines which. How we deal with it is the important part. I try my best to face them and take baby steps in overcoming it. I try to think positive in the process and hope to perform well to benefit myself.
Fear has a way of making us question our own beliefs and dreams. When fear comes upon a person everything seems in question and I tend to make false judgements. The word “fear” to me is being afraid of something or even an idea. Even if it’s something that I know could never happen, it scares me to even think about it. My biggest fear is dying young. Life is all about having experiences whether good or bad and I want to experience everything in my lifetime. My dreams of my future are so big that I would be devastated if they were cut short or if I ran out of time before reaching my goals that I worked so hard to reach. Also, someone close to me dying is something that creates fear inside of me. My family is the center of my life and it wouldn’t seem the same if someone in my family just wasn’t there anymore. I have many fears now that I’m sitting here and thinking about it more. Another fear of mine are heights. I’ve never been a fan of them which is why I don’t understand why rollercoasters are my favorite. Just climbing on a ladder I look underneath me and see how high I am and just think of all the possible ways I could fall and break something or ever break my neck and be paralyzed. I know those thoughts seem a little exaggerated but every time I’m doing something that fears me I always think of the worst possible thing that could happen to me. Another fear of mine would be being a disappointment. If I never lived up to my parents expectations. I enjoy making my parents proud because they’ve always done a lot for me so I like to repay them by getting good grades. My fears have been consistent throughout my life just the level of how extreme they are has changed since I was younger. Now I’m more afraid of death than I was before because college is right around the corner and I’m closer to reaching my goals. I think that the reason my fears have evolved is because I’m older and have seen that life doesn’t always last as long as you want it to. I would say that the biggest fear that everyone has is getting through life itself. Going into the unknown and not being able to tell the future. I don’t think the fears I have will ever go away only because I’ve had the same ones my whole life. Sometimes fear is a good thing to have because it can keep you out of trouble. Fear is always going to be something that everyone else because everyone is always afraid of something no matter how big or small it is. Whoever says they’re not afraid of anything I would call a liar because it’s impossible to completely comfortable with everything life throws at you.
ReplyDeleteMy definition of fear is pretty simple. I feel as though it means being scared to face something.
ReplyDeleteAs a little girl, I was terrified of the dark. This seemingly stupid fear did have some reasons behind it. It was after I saw the movie Monsters Inc. Though I loved it very much, it got me thinking. Monsters could really be hiding in my closet. It wasn’t enough for me to just close my closet door. I needed to sleep with a night light on. Even after I grew out of the monsters thing, I didn’t want there to be anything that I couldn’t see lurking around in the darkness of my room. Yes, now I can sleep with the lights off but I’ve become so accustomed to a gleam of light in the corner of my room that I’d rather not. My only other true fear is worms. Another reasonable fear. Long story short, in the first grade, I played with an acorn in class. I cracked it open with a pencil and proceeded looking through it. Suddenly out of nowhere, a white worm (possibly a maggot) squirmed through its acorn home right in front of my face. I threw the acorn across the room and my fear began. Other than these two extremely logical fears, fear drives me especially when it’s standing in the way of something I want. I used to be terrified by public speaking. I would stutter, shake, and continuously utter “um” and “uh”. I became so embarrassed that I swallowed up my fear and started taking it one step at a time. I gradually changed my way of speaking. Now, I am 95% better at public speaking (I’m not the best).
Fear is something that propels me to move past the thing I’m afraid of. I believe fear comes only from our brains and is all psychological and depends on the lives we live. If one lives in the Mid-West and has never seen the ocean before, they may be afraid of the ocean and hurricanes and other saltwater related activities. I recently overcame this trepidation of being alone. I would only do things with my friends or when someone else could do them with me. I had to force myself to put a stop to this because some of friends cared about other people’s perception of them and nothing else. My friends wouldn’t do anything- even if it was fun- unless everybody else was doing it. Outside of school, I can be a very impetuous person but those circumstances changed my personality. I would want to do something childish but fun (like I always do), and they would put the idea and myself down for thinking in such a juvenile way.
Fear can be a good thing. It doesn’t always hold people back. It can keep them in check. I won’t ever cheat in Bunje’s class due to the fear of getting caught, yelled at, and receiving her disappointment. Fear of going to jail, also keeps a lot of people from stealing.
I am afraid of heights. But, that will never stop me from going bungee jumping, skydiving, or cliff jumping. My fear is about a 5.7 on the fear scale but the undeniable joy I see in people’s faces after they’re done makes me crave that feeling. So, I stand on the edge with my heart beating out of its chest. I don’t stay there long enough for me to second guess myself. I take a deep breath and against every fiber of my being, jump. Whether I enjoy it or not, I never regret facing my fears.
ReplyDeleteFear is fear. Everyone has it, everyone is affected by it. I’m sure you’ve all seen movies where the main character faces a complication and an angel and a devil suddenly pop up on each side of his/her shoulders, telling him/her what he should do. Yea, that’s what fear is: that annoying little voice that either prevents you from achieving greatness or gives you the power to change the world. We often choose our mind over our heart. We get so easily swayed by the rationality of the situation and become so unsure of ourselves; we don’t know what to do anymore. Should we take the leap, or should we not? We’re human beings, and we like having an answer to everything. The idea of “what if” scares us. So we back away and hope to never face it again. And our dream remains a dream, nothing more. That’s what my dear friend, Mary Morrissey is trying to get across.
To quote from Rocky:
“You see, fear is a fighter's best friend. You know, but it ain't nothing to be ashamed of. See, fear keeps you sharp, it keeps you awake, you know, it makes you want to survive. But the thing is, you gotta learn how to control it. 'Cause fear is like this fire, you know, and it's burning deep inside. If it controls you, it's gonna burn you and everything else around you up.”
Yes, I just quoted Rocky. I’m terribly sorry (no I’m not). But I feel like it ties into my blog post (or I just wanted an excuse to quote Rocky, who knows).To me, fear is just something that makes us bolder, stronger than we were before. Yes; it holds us back, makes us doubt ourselves. We may even get scared. But thats the point! If we didn’t have fear, we wouldn’t be stepping outside our comfort zone. If we didn’t have fear, we wouldn’t be expanding our limits. If we didn’t have fear, we wouldn’t be tough. To be quite honest with you, I don’t think we’d be the person we are today without it. We view it as a threat, but is it really? (Though, of course there are exceptions. I mean, who wouldn’t be scared of a car coming at them at 100 miles per hour) As Rocky said, fear is like fire. You can’t let it control you; you must control the fear. If not, it will consume you and you will miss out on all the great things (maybe, maybe not) in life. The way I see it, there’s two ways you can go about it. You can either make something great out of it, or swallow up in its flames.
My fear is that, in twenty or so years, I won’t be content my life. I’m afraid I’ll be so involved with the materialistic lifestyle, only the best of the best will satisfy me. I’m afraid that I won’t be happy with my profession or wit the guy I marry or something weird along those lines. I fear choosing money over family and friends. I hate to say this, but I fear that I’ll be like my aunts and uncles.
"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."
ReplyDeleteWhat this means to me is that you are stopping yourself from doing what you want to do because you fear you will fail or do something wrong, not having any faith in yourself. You need to trust in yourself to do something.
Fear to me means a couple things. Fear is being scared. Stopping yourself from doing something. Steering clear of certain things. Fears can be little and fears can be big but a fear is a fear and everyone has one.
My fear as an eighth grader was not fitting in, I wanted everyone to like me and I wanted everyone to be my friend. I acted different sometimes just to not seem weird and unlikable. My fear as I got older became more rational. I fear losing people, I fear death, I fear pain, I fear heartbreak,my biggest fear is loving someone with everything in me and them not feeling the same back. Friend, boyfriend, family member. I care about these people so much and they feel the same, and I’m scared eventually they won't. Kennedy is my best friend and I would be lost without her honestly. My feelings for Juwan are so strong that yeah I would be prettttyyy upset if we separated. It’s so corny but what keeps me awake at night is over thinking. I think all night the most random thoughts and scenarios. I think that I will never be good enough, there's always someone better, I am afraid one day my boyfriend will randomly tell me he doesn’t have feelings for me anymore, I am afraid something is going to happen to my parents. I fear these things because if they were to happen to me I would honestly be devastated. But I also have other fears, heights, well I’m not afraid of heights but I’m afraid of falling you know? being so high up i would probably die. I'm afraid of the ocean, the fear of drowning, being eaten by a shark, I never go too far in at the beach. I also have the fear of being kidnapped and murdered. Being a small girl I fear walking in the dark alone, or being in public places alone. I fear alot of things both big and little. Fear can sometimes be a good thing to feel, they’ll keep you safe. But they’ll also hold you back. I don’t deal with fear, I just stay away from things I’m scared of. I push the thoughts that keep me up at night to the back of my head and just go to sleep. Everyone has fears. My dad tells me he has no fears, but I think he does. Everyone does.
"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."
ReplyDeleteBeing someone who can never catch a break from fear... and when I say never I mean NEVER, I can relate to this quote. I've had many different dreams or aspirations in my lifetime so far but every time I became excited about it, I automatically began to rethink it. This applies to anything for me. This can range from wearing that new shirt to getting out of bed in the morning. Unfortunately, I let my faith be overcome by fear and that is something I am working on, though at this point I don't think I've made any progress. If I know an answer in class, I will not raise my hand because I am too afraid that the entire class will laugh hysterically, get up and begin to throw anything they can find at me. I know that is completely irrational. But my entire life consists of irrational fears.
To me, fear is just a normal part of my every day life. I'm always on edge and always clenching my fists and over what? If I could answer that question, all my problems would be solved. But I can't. Fear isn't "clowns" or "spiders" (even though I don't appreciate the presence either one). It's just something that follows me 24 hours a day.
I've been asked this question by many people, many times and I can rarely come up with anything because I honestly don't know. I think my biggest fear... is my fear. If I said that to someone who doesn't experience the same thing, they wouldn't be able to understand. What I mean is, I am afraid of the constant heart-racing, muscle-clenching fear that follows me wherever I go. This fear has not changed and I cannot remember a time where it was not there, but it did evolve and still is evolving into something that I am not sure I have control over. It's not getting better, but it is getting worse. If you see me in school and it looks like I'm crying, I am. But if you were to ask me what I'm crying about, I won't be able to answer. I am never able to identify where it's coming from or what it's about. It's just always there.
I stop myself from doing something because of fear on a daily basis and I almost always regret it, but I eventually forget about it because that is just something that I go through every day.
My first thought while reading this question was "WHAT?! FEAR IS NEVER A GOOD THING!" but I quickly took my head out of my ass and realized that's not true. Fear can be a really good thing when you have to be alert. For example, if you're walking home alone at night, you should have some fear because today we can't trust just anyone. Using your fear to stay alert will keep you safe from harm.
Your dreams should not be blocked because of fear. One should have faith in their dream because they have dreams for a reason. We have dreams so we know what we need to work for. Things such as fear should not get in our way of achieving our dreams. We need to have faith in our dreams but when our fears overpower our faith, that is when we give up on our dream. So to conclude, Mary Morrissey’s quote is saying that fear plays a huge role in our dreams, and if we let that fear get too big, then we are blocking our dreams from becoming true.
ReplyDeleteFear is a feeling that causes anxiety and evokes nervousness. Fear causes us to back away because we are afraid to be judged on our opinions. My biggest fear is the fear of being judged. Being judge is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone. I try to make myself fit in with everyone and sometimes that does not happen. When someone says something about me, I tend to shield myself from the world because I think everyone thinks that. It is a bad trait about being me. Although I had a lot of other fears such as being afraid of birds, but my biggest fear has stayed the same since 6th grade. But what keeps me up at night is not the fear of being judged, it is the fear that a huge gigantic bird is going to come and attack me in my sleep. I know it might be childish, but I am deathly afraid of birds. People say that birds are harmless animals, but to me, they are evil animals that are waiting for the chance to attack me. My phobia of birds is so bad that I will not even approach a bird, I will wait for it to fly away in order for me to proceed on. Ever seen the painting by Bosch called Garden of Earthly Delights? There is a scene on the third panel, that depicts hell and inside that panel, there is a picture of a bird eating a human. I feel like that is what is going to happen to me. Yeah that is why I have dark circles; because I have a childish fear like that.
Back in like elementary school, I use to be afraid of everything. Fear played a huge role my childhood. I was afraid to try new things and that might explain why I did not learn how to swim until 5th grade. Fear hasn’t really evolved for me, but I did notice something. Now I try to block out fear, although it sometimes does not work, and I try my best to disregard that. Fear comes from the mind. It is a stimulation from the mind to discourage us from doing certain things.
I stop myself all the time from doing something because of fear. For example, I stop myself from trying new things because I am afraid what the outcome might be. Yes, I regret it every time whenever I decide not to try new things. Because of this stupid thing call fear, I can’t try new things. One example is that I do not want to go ziplining because I am afraid that I will crash into something. Ziplining is honestly really cool and I want to try it so bad, but fear has kept me from trying it out. Fear is only good when it protects us against danger. So whenever we are being followed in a dark alley, we know to call for help because we have that instinct that it is dangerous. If we weren’t afraid of fear, then we would be exposed to so many dangers. So fear is necessary, although it keeps us from a lot of things. I try to hide fear away in the back of my head. I do my best to avoid fear but if it's unavoidable, then I just embrace as if it is a trait of me.
Faith can mean a number of things. Although I have always been surrounded by religion, I don’t practice any religious faith. I don’t go to church and I don’t really know how to pray. I join in prayer circles before shows because I know that Lainey’s warm, passionate words will comfort me and because I love the people I am surrounded with when I perform. Though because I don’t practice a faith, the word’s connotation changes from religion to personal beliefs and morals. Mary Manin Morrissey’s quote can apply to any situation in which a dream is unrealistic and almost unachievable. It may not be impossible, but it might be difficult to come by. Morrissey implied that dreams become impractical when the fear of failing overpowers the faith someone holds in themselves.
ReplyDeleteGoogle defines fear as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” Fear is different than anxiety, but both are disconcerting feelings. A time that I am afraid is when I am home alone in the dark with no way to protect myself if someone were to come and kidnap me. The things that put me over the edge can range from the clanking of a dishwasher to a tree snapping miles in the distance. These subtle, harmless nuances hold enough power to make me run for my sister’s baseball bat. That being said, I am most afraid of being helpless and vulnerable in a time of trouble. Even though I may have my escape routes planned out and my baseball bat at hand, in times of trouble all I could do is let it be! I couldn’t stop a robber from breaking into my house and I couldn’t save my family if a gunman was attacking us. My fear reminds me that I am just a little girl and although I have the occasional heroic ninja fantasy, I know that I would be the one to let everyone down in a distressful situation.
This fear, along with others, has always floated in the back of my mind. Though with all of the police shootings and terrorist threats, the idea of violence in my life becomes more and more practical each year. As a young girl, I never sought to define fear. I always thought that my unwillingness to flip off of the high bar at gymnastics was caused by fear and until I read this blog, I always believed that I was afraid of performances. Now that I audition and perform much more, I understand that those are not feelings of fear, but anxiety. The real fear is the one I described in the above paragraph, not something I mistook for anxiety or nervousness. The real fear of helplessness comes from the horrible stories of rape, kidnapping, murders...the list goes on. Many times when I am home alone, I stop myself from being in plain sight, walking the dog, or making loud noises. The paranoia in my head tells me to lock myself in my room with my dog and just relax. Instead of vacuuming the first floor like my Mama would ask me to, I become afraid of the possibility of me not being able to hear a door opening or a window breaking. It is in these cases that I think this crazy fear of mine pays off. If I were to be making noise and a burglar somehow unlocked the back door, I wouldn’t have enough time to run or hide. I couldn’t call the police or protect my puppy. I haven’t ever regretted choosing safety over my parents’ satisfaction. I know this fear is completely ridiculous in most ways, but many phobias are! I just ask that if you read this, please don’t think I’m totally insane.
The quote embraces the fact faith should always stronger than fear, because fear ruins lives and more importantly dreams. One of the biggest reasons that many people don't live an extraordinary life is because they are too fearful to take a leap and believe in themselves. Over the years society gradually accustomed to allow success come from hard work and determination. The more we learn to overcome your fears, the more of life we will experience. Success in life can be limited to due to deep-seated fears holding. No matter what life will throw your way, you must be willing to overcome it because, willing to overcome your fears and taking action leads to a happy life without fear. Even though sometimes life will be scary, and sometimes you will have to take big risks, let the fear motivate you to take action. Think of all the things you could’ve done and how badly the regret encircles you. It’s not worth never trying something new because fear holds you back from the things that really matter. Passion and desire can be the strongest forces in the world along with faith and belief. Fear should not stop you from making the decisions that change lives. If fear is all that we have to fear, what are we so scared of. Don’t give in, or give in and overpower because regret is more feared than any other thing of its kind.
ReplyDeleteLike I learned in Wise’s class, take every action when you’re scared “Do it Scared”, likewise advice given to me years back, “do one thing scared” to live a better life seems almost necessary. The biggest thing I can think of being scared of besides the usual (bugs, rollercoasters, snakes, sometimes all animals, death, skydiving, wearing cowgirl boots, someone shaving my eye off, dark and quiet places, the silence, the noise, loneliness, afterlife, god) basically that and a 100 things more involving creepy crawly things and then some more. But my most feared subject matter has made an appearance far too often on this blog site so I’m sure you know it at this point. Yup you’ve got it. The tragic cause to my predicted death, stage fright.
The feeling is like no other, unlike the minor fears I carry through my life, the thought of talking in front of people literally forces an off switch, where I am no longer in control of anything. Speech, movements even my own thoughts are solely fear driven. The exception is, this isn’t some movie where my forehead and palms glisten with sweat as the camera closes in the short nor do I fidget uncontrollably(maybe a little though, but not really sure). Ill try to explain it but no words have the capabilities to enforce my minds process that happens in a matter of second. Firstly I am always somewhat aware I will be doing some kind of speech before it happens, therefore people excuse “oh then you’ll have time to prepare mentality” If only it was that easy but it seems as if time is not a factor in play. Furthermore I am totally fine, at least now, walking into class and waiting until my name is called. It is the moment I get called that the temperature in the room spikes up a 100 degrees and my face burns. Tears glisten at the backs of my eyes and while I endlessly twirl my ring biting back the flow of unnecessary tears my mind blanks on everything I knew so well seconds before. Now crying might seem overdramatic but it’s not so much as crying as just random tears and sometime uncontrollable shaking. The weirdest part is I’m fine, seconds before.
In the moment I am conscious of actually saying words, what words that come spattering out of my jumbled thoughts are instantly forgotten the moment I sit back down. It’s like a black out, even if were to focus and stare at a poster, I couldn’t tell you the illustration on it seconds after. As soon it’s over the moment is a blur, suppressed from my mind. Now I do have to pat myself on the back and also congratulate Bunje for having me as a junior instead of in freshman year. Ask anyone, any of the 50 kids I’ve known my entire life, or Rock. I bet she remembers when I couldn’t even read my narrative and had to come after school exclusively to get some kind of grade on it. Over the years I have come a long way and wish to continue progressing. Truth is I think, after receiving so much work and the lack of sleep has left me not caring anymore. I have another life, a brand new life to live after high school, more vicious and hard then the present (ehh not sure yet, maybe high schools the worst it’s going to get……hopefully) So why waste a second of it NOT making mistakes that you’ll forget about when you find someone you like or a career and start a whole new chapter.
ReplyDeleteMy fears, even the most diminutive ones, I have yet to escape. At least I’m working on the biggest one but other than that there is no getting through to snakes and bugs. Death and the more philosophical fears may be just curiosity in the end because it’s not like I stay awake at night fearing the unknown. So how I deal with, sometimes I don’t. But the evolution of fear, in my case, has grown from stupid fears and ones felt after looking at the world more closely than others would like. Corruption, murder are scary. Fear is a great thing to feel, it drives to greater heights then one could imagine possible. It brings out courage when most needed. And is brought out from the experiences we have lived and seen in and out of reality. The world around us forces fear down our throats from mermaids to paper cuts. Society is so fearful, fears of the strangest things had to be scientifically named to make them sound like legit reasons to be afraid instead of absurd thoughts. Although I may never overcome many of my fears, I’m okay with how I live my life. I will not let them hinder my performance and try to learn to push past them. Otherwise, it is what it is, they are a part of me and are to be seen as just another characteristic.
"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."
ReplyDeleteThis a very true quote, and I agree completely. Mary Manin Morrissey is saying that you can never prosper in what you would like to do if you allow your fears to have a bigger influence on what you’re doing than your confidence to do these things. If your fear overcomes your confidence, the confidence you will have will diminish and you will not be able to complete your goal.
Google defines fear as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” To me, this definition is very accurate, It is an unpleasant feeling, it is caused by the someone or something dangerous, causing pain, with a loose definition of “dangerous, causing pain, or threatening.” Tom put it into my own words I would say fear is the uneasy feeling you get when you see, hear, or talk about something you do not like, or are scared of. I know it is not ideal to use a word so similar to fear, scared, in the definition but I really did not know how to describe it without using some form of “scared.”
I fear rejection. It is one of my worst qualities that I wish I didn’t have. Anything that I can really get rejected on, I’m afraid to do. If me and someone else wants to do something, I’m the one to insist I’m not the one to ask for permission. I’m even scared to ask my dad for money most of the time. As long as there is a good reason he gives me whatever he can but for some reason, I’m just afraid to ask because “no’s” are scary to me. I really shouldn’t be like this and I wish I wasn’t but that’s how my mind decides to function. I've been like this for as long as I can remember. I even recall sitting at the top of the stairs for minutes when I was young scared to go as my parents for a snack or something. (IDK how accurate that is I do not have a very good memory.) I’ve always been like this and although it has greatly reduced over the past couple years, it is still with me.
This fear greatly restricts me from living life to the fullest. I have been held back from multiple things because I was too scared to ask someone for something or I was scared to do something because I was afraid it would not work. It is one of the reasons why I am single and have been for so long, I’m scared of being rejected. I feel as though life would be A LOT better for me if I didn’t have this fear stuck with me. I even have to text my father to ask him for things not call or face to face, like I really have issues. That’s exaggerating a little I ask my dad for things to his face all the time but I’d much rather text him.
My specific fear I believe does not have a bright side, but some do. For example, a fear of some dangerous animal, then you will stay away from that animal and not risk getting hurt like some people who like to wrestle dangerous animals. (white people :( ) If you have a fear of heights, you most likely will never have to put yourself in a dangerous situation like falling off of a high building. I could go all day with examples like these but I believe my point is made. Fear can be good at times. It can be a good learning experience and can keep you out of trouble.
Fear is both good and bad, and in reality is just a motion that a lot of people (including myself) need to learn how to handle and extract the positives from.
Fire and ice, up and down, dreams and fears-- common contradictions. Since Mary Manin Morrissey said “you block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith”, let’s talk about dreams and fears. Everyone dreams during the night and day. Dreams are lowkey goals you want to do that makes you happy or brings joy to your life. Fears are the opposite, they make you scared of-- fulfilling your goals, the world(society), being yourself-- anything really. Don't you let those fears, whatever they may be, block you from achieving your dreams. I know most people don’t believe in “faith”, but I sure as hell do and believe me that faith will always be in your favor. Shit may happen but it all happens for a reason. DO NOT let Fear take Faith’s place.
ReplyDeleteFear, like I said before, keeps you from being yourself. Fear keeps you hidden from the world. Fear prevents you from making your dreams into reality. On the surface, a fear I have, is to die from drowning. *knocks on wood* I’d rather die from a gunshot-- quick and painless. With drowning, you’re suffering during your last moments and trying to grasp for air while the water fills up your lungs-- painfully and slow. Just a side note, I can’t swim... LOL, a whole 16 year old who can’t swim and yet is the swim manager for the team. I’m embarrassed to say that but it’s not a big deal if people find out. When I say “on the surface” I’m implying that I don’t care if people know this about me. I’m sure everyone is scared to die, especially when they don’t know when it’s coming. Going more into depth, bigger fears of mine would be rejection, disappointing others, and not being good enough. Not necessarily in that order. Those three, mainly keep me up at night ever since middle school. It gets super annoying during the hours of 11pm-4am. I didn’t ask to be in my feels every night, but my brain decides to think on high power then versus during the school day when I need it most. I think of all the arguments, all the drama, and all the things I should’ve said but didn’t.
Certain insecurities never seem to have faded away unfortunately, thus the fear of not being good enough. When I think I’m not good enough for someone, I assume they will reject me as a whole person. In reality, I never even bothered to try to find out if I was good or not because my fear took over my faith (s/o to Marry!!). Since I didn’t try, I more often than not end up disappointing them and myself. It’s one big circle and they all relate to each other. It isn’t healthy, especially since I’ve had this mind set since the middle of 6th grade (when I moved from NY to NJ). I never really told this to anyone-- besides one. He had to pry it out of me, but eventually got me to spill the beans. No one ever seemed to notice my fears/insecurities, whatever you wanna call it, except for him.
I hate when I feel as if I'm not good enough. There have been few instances where I let people down by not living up to their standards. I know there will always be someone better, who can easily replace me, and no matter how hard I try I will always think of myself as small. My biggest problem with relationships is that I compare myself to my significant other’s ex. No one should ever do that but I can’t help it. The thought of the girl before me who held his hand, shared heart to heart conversations, said “I love you” first-- kills me. It’s like I have giant shoes to fill and I can never scratch the surface. Being compared, not only to ex’s, but to neighbors and cousins over all suck. Most often than not, I’m the one that is inferior in the comparison. Growing up with friends since the age of 4, all of our parents would talk about us. I hate that whenever I got an A, she got an A+ then later on I would get a lecture why I should strive for high grades and to use so&so as a role model. Thus bringing me back to the never ending feeling. My stomach clenches, my heart begins to race, and tears start to form. I hate the feeling of not being good enough.
DeleteI hate when I disappoint people, especially my parents. They sacrifice as much as they possibly can for me, and yet I still take advantage of their love and affection. All my mom ever tells me: “I raised you well, put food on your plate, roof over your head, and the way you repay me is with a B/C on your interim???!!?!?!” I remind her that it’s only interims but she doesn’t care. In a way, she’s right though. She does provide of me for many things, the least I could do is try hard in school because I have no other excuse. Another thing she always tells me: “when you graduate high school, go to nursing school, get a job, help me with the bills even if you’re married with your own crazy kids”. I said, “okay”. She has been persuading me to go to nursing school, ever since I was six. Nursing or anything in the medical field are the only things I’ve been exposed to really. Now, my mom is not a nurse but she works at a hospital and lowkey wishes she was one because they make hella bank per year. Anyways, I never had the chance to explore my own interests but by now I kinda like the idea of making almost $70,000 per year-- so I’ll just stick to it. (I’m being sarcastic) I like helping people and I actually do find the medical field very interesting after taking honors anatomy. I promised my parents that I would go into nursing and help pay bills. I’m even considering going to ACCC so I won’t have any student loans. Now, let’s say that I changed my mind during senior year that I want to be a teacher. My mom and dad would freak out! First they would be mad and start yelling, then the disappointment would kick in and not say a word. I would rather have them yell at me so I know what they’re feeling, versus them giving me the look that I let them down. My stomach clenches, my heart begins to race, and my own facial expression is still. I hate disappointing people.
I ask myself constantly, why the heck am I like this way? Why the heck can’t I be like everyone else and just not care about those things? I wish the thoughts would go away tbh. I’m not the type to be flamboyant in crowds because I fear of not being accepted. I blame my fears for being shy 80% of the time. The only thing I regret about that is, I’m not as outgoing or social in big crowds. Everyone knows of me, but they don’t know me. I have a decent amount of followers, but I don’t talk to a majority of them. Fear (at least based on my own) is not good. It holds me back. I lack in what others seem to be a natural at which kinda bms but i’ll get over it. This coming New Years though, my resolution is to change that. Baby steps of course.
I interpreted it in two different ways: The only thing stopping you is yourself. When you let your fear of failing overwhelm the confidence you have in yourself, you lose your ability to keep going towards your dream.
ReplyDeleteAt the base of all of my fears lies a virulent virus that seizes control of my entire body; over-thinking. The fears that I have are purely the result of over-thinking. Heights. Rejection. One example would be when I walked to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa.
On my way to the top, I noticed the spectacular view that could be seen through the fences that prevented me from falling off of the side. Breathtaking. A once in a life-time experience. Then it hits me. Unnatural, illogical thoughts that pervade my consciousness and cause all the gears to spin uncontrollably. Thoughts burgeon in the calm prairie within my mind: I’m pretty high up in the air aren’t I? The floor is so steep it kinda feels like I’m falling right? The wind is going to push me off the edge. I instinctively grabbed the nearest wall for support and stood there frozen in fear. It took at least 30 seconds for me to recollect, to calm the storm, and I nonchalantly continued to the top.
Fear, I believe, has a base. A seed of sorts. The idea to be afraid was planted there by an event, a feeling, or a gradual process that renders the victim helpless. Or at least imbues the feeling of helplessness within an individual. No one was born to be afraid. How can you be afraid of something that is unknown to you. Maybe you are afraid of the unknown but that itself is a learned behavior.
Fear continuously ruins my life on a daily basis. There is not a moment in the day when I am not afraid. I exaggerate of course, but I have become a professional in the art of keeping my feelings, thoughts and emotions bottled up inside. No one truly knows how I feel, at least not all the time. There are many instances where my fears have prevented me from doing something that would have made me a better person. However, fear is what keeps me from crossing the line to stupidity. Seldom have I done something stupid and illogical all thanks to fear.
How do I deal with it? I make sure I don’t pass the point of no return. At some point, my mind would overthink uncontrollably and I shut down or refuse to continue on. Before it comes to that, I sing a song in my head to calm down. Usually an old-fashion ukulele song or a classic love song.
Blog: F.E.A.R
ReplyDelete“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith”
Morrissey’s corruption and selfishness aid in manifesting the unpopular idea that the word “faith” can be falsely used by one person or one group for an isolated, individual benefit. After co-founding the Global Association for New Thought, morrissey’s power lust drowned out her supposed spirituality and left her a suspect of a ten million dollar scandal, which she defended in her interview with Pacific Northwest’s Journal of Conscious Living columnist Vicky Thompson, as an initial act of faith. While she may be spiritual and she may believe and worship some form of a higher entity or entities, and while all people mistakenly act out of line once and awhile, Morrissey lacks remorse and claims she will just have to “start over” and prove herself to her followers once again. In other words, she has to reclaim her authority and prove that she can outtake anyone who oversteps her boundaries by defending her innocence with counterfeit guilt. And the worst part is, she buys her act just as much as her ignorant followers do. She does not fear losing faith in whatever she has faith in, she fears losing the faith that people have in her. Her fear did deluge her faith, the spirituality that inspired her initial cause, therefore her initial dreams were suffocated as well. Morrissey’s quote is rooted in hypocrisy.
The quote itself harbors no truth to those who are ignorant to the printed definition of the word “faith”. Faith in society and cultures around the world is a direct derivative of hope and hope a direct derivative of fear. I don’t paint with broad brushstrokes, but in most catholic churches, preachers teach children from a young age that God is a powerful entity that inflicts deathly punishment on those who do not obey his every command. There is no growing room for mistakes or “sinful” (human) thought or desire. On the other hand, in catholic and christian churches, maybe with the exception of the freely run, hippie-esque undeclared branch of christianity, the portrayal of the devil and of hell is meant to scare people into acting in accordance with the law, with rules that may not even make sense to them, and thus to obey. Today’s tight, restricted religious standards do nothing but deconstruct a person’s willful thought. Today’s religion re-births citizens into fearful, submissive, essentially programmed robots. Therefor, fear already overpowers faith because it diminishes it and ironically morphs it into a falsely defined excuse for fear. Fear then becomes synonymous for the popularly defined (wrongly defined) version faith and both block out dreams, falsifying Morrissey’s quote entirely.
However, she did say “your faith”. To those who define faith correctly, the quote yields a speck of truth. If fear were to swallow a person’s unpopularity defined (correctly defined) version of faith, that person would become blind to dreams. Of course we decide to submit to fear so the idea that “you block your dream when you allow fear to grow bigger than your faith” would possess truth to those with genuine faith. Although only a diminutive amount of truth exists for them as well; if a person fostered true faith, derived from love, peace, bodily coherence and understanding, rather than false faith derived from desperate, benighted hope, fear would never asphyxiate them.
ReplyDeleteThree words caught my attention when I read the quote by Mary Manin Morrissey: dreams, fear, faith. Dreams, meaning your future goals; fear, meaning being afraid of what’s to come; and faith, as in confidence or believing in yourself. Together, Morrissey’s quote means that you cannot achieve your dreams if you are more afraid than you are confident. Confidence is the key to success, and if you let fear overcome that, you will most definitely fail.
ReplyDeleteTo be completely honest, I don’t know how else to define fear other than being afraid. I tried being deep and philosophical about the definition, but to keep it real, fear is just being afraid of something. It’s plain and simple, nothing fancy. However, it could be used in many ways. One could be afraid of an object, person, animal, etc. But, it doesn’t always have to be physical things that one could be scared of. They could be afraid of failure, loss, rejection, or anything of that sort. For me, one of my biggest fears is being unhappy with my life when I grow up. I am pretty sure I even mentioned this multiple times in previous blogs. I know it’s very vague and corny but it crosses my mind all the time. I am scared of being an adult with a dead-end job that I hate and do the same thing every day of my life with no hopes of advancing. I want to be content with everything before I die. On my deathbed, I want to be able to say “I lived a full and happy life.” John Lennon supposedly had the same idea when he was young. When he was just a child his teacher asked him what did he want to be when he grows up, he simply answered, “happy.” I’m not sure if this is entirely true but it’s something to think about.
Around the time of eighth-grade to freshman year, my fear was not fitting in. This made me put up a false front which eventually made things worse for me. However, I eventually grew out of that fear because I knew I had other things to worry about. Now, I actually fear things that make sense like the future, grades, STDs, etc. Although, being afraid may not always be a bad thing. Fear can prevent you from getting into bad situations. For example, when you feel scared before you do something reckless, you should probably let the fear control you. This could save you from getting into trouble or getting hurt. In the end, all humans feel fear and it helps us become stronger people. Fear is an obstacle that we will all learn to overcome.
Each being that encounters fear interprets it differently. However, the biological reaction to fear, and the biological cause of fear, is always the same. There is a low road and high road to fear. The low road “shoots first and asks questions later”. In other words, the low road states that it is safer to assume the worst out of protection for oneself. If you hear your front door swing open while you are not able to see it, it is safer to assume the worst, that someone is breaking into your home, because doing so sends stimuli to a part of your brain called the Thalamus which decides which sensory gland to send the information to next, determining your reaction to the quick fear you experience. The Amygdala receives the information next implementing the fight-or-flight response. It may send this information to the Hypothalamus which will protect you and initiate the fight or flight response. This could save your life. This happens within each brain of each living organism big and small. The high road is much more thought out. Your eyes and ears hear or see your front door swing open and you rule out all of the possibilities. Then, whatever information you garner is sent through the Thalamus to the Sensory Cortex where it develops meaning and aids you in establishing what that meaning is. Then it travels to the Hippocampus which asks questions pertaining to whether this type of stimuli has occurred before and, if so, what happened last time it did. Eventually, you may rule out all of the possibilities and logically decide that the wind pushed the door open, not an intruder, in which case the Amygdala will tell the Hypothalamus to cease all fight or flight activity. This, too, happens within each brain of each living organism big or small. All in all, once we give in to our fight or flight responses (after the seemingly lengthy process of making a decision, all parts of the brain, adrenal glands, and systems considered), our heart rates increase, and fear finally prevails.
ReplyDeleteDespite the science, though, we all have unique interpretations regarding what fear feels like, what should induce it, and all that is “scary”. I just use science as an interpretation because I feel I need to. Dating back to my joke of a childhood, I cannot recall a single instance that anxiety did not rule my life. Not the worrisome, stressed-out kind. Not the kind with a cause. Just general anxiety (which I now know is classified as Generalized Anxiety Disorder). After years of succumbing to the panicky-bullshit it brings, I learned that BDD is something that consumes me as well. I am aware of the fears (fears, not preferences) that surfaced as a result, like peanut butter or table sugar, and that they are very irrational. However, despite that calamites that arose from these two trenchant disorders, I am glad I have them; otherwise I would never have known that fear is comprised merely of nightmaristic imagination and nothing more. If you are afraid of spiders it is mostly if not entirely due to the pain they COULD inflict on you. If you are afraid of roller coasters it is mostly due to the idea that it COULD spontaneously collapse or stop mid-loop. Understanding that, scientifically, I have control over what I fear helps me cope with anxiety every day.
Rational fear is only rational if it occurs at a rational time. If your boat sinks and you are stranded in the middle of the ocean with nothing but a loan scrap of bow, it is reasonable and probably necessary to be afraid of many things including sea-dwelling killers, starvation, lack of energy, etc. However, if you are walking down the street on your way to a friend’s house and you are imagining this scenario in your head and using it to justify your fear of boats, or of starvation or lack of stamina, that is where fear becomes irrational. In the movie “After Earth”, Will Smith’s character relayed that “fear is not real. It is a product of the thoughts you create...Danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”
ReplyDeleteI fear losing appetite for individuality which may occur as a result of misguided success. I value happiness over income but the idea of predisposed long-term poverty is generally discouraging. I doubt it will affect me but I fear conforming to a nuclear life and striving for a typical routine-based job. I fear falling victim to the stand-still path more traveled rather than one I pave for myself in which I can fanute contemporary society into a less-conventional version of itself. I fear losing myself, ultimately, in the persuasive ease of conformity that consumes so many. Of course, my fears in eighth grade, ninth grade and tenth grade were different. I was a different person though, and imagination only grows increasingly darker when faced with harsher realities that surface as the years go on.
Fear stops everyone from doing some things. Some might miss out on once-in-a-lifetime experiences due to the immense amounts of fear bubbling from their vivid imaginations. And, underneath their sweaty palms and trembling extremities, regret surfaces as well. Of course fear stops people from doing things, but it also saves lives. I’m not sure if I’ve missed out on anything because of fear, I can’t really remember. But I do know that I don’t let it stop me now. In Hawaii, for example, I swam with wild manta rays at midnight in the middle of a desolate ocean yielding 30 feet of smooth black water lit with delicate floodlights planted on the seafloor. The size of the animal scared me at first, but its graciousness, gentleness and fragility quickly settled my mind. If I chose to allow fear to contribute to my decision to embark on that journey, I would have missed the most beautiful, breath taking, spiritual moment of my life. Fear is a decision. Air is a necessity. Don't decide to fear if it stifles the air you breathe.
The easiest way for me to interpret the quote is with a bible verse, more specifically John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Mary Manin Morrissey theory on fear is that when you lose faith you succumb to fear, essentially destroying your dreams. Whether or not Morrissey is speaking in relation to religion I simply believe that the quote from John explains what she is talking about better. The quote from John simply says that if you have faith you will never perish, just as the quote from Mary Morrissey says that if your faith is stronger than your fear than your dreams can never be blocked. (The use of John 3:16 helped me understand the quote better) Morrissey’s quote "You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith." I interpreted the quote as “dreams come from faith, when faith is lost dreams can never be reached”.
ReplyDeleteFear is something I have difficulty defining even though I don’t go through a day without experiencing it, so I will attempt to explain It in my own words (I could use a quote from Disturbed but, that wouldn’t be in my own words), fear is a limitation that we place on ourselves. We put many limitations on ourselves as doe’s society. What causes fear? Fear is caused by doubt, doubt is like a virus, and once the seed is placed it will eventually consume you. We all have had doubt dominate our thoughts, preventing us from achieving what we desire.
My biggest fear is nothing, what keeps me awake at night is the thought of becoming nothing. The eventuality of death doesn’t scare me, it happens to everyone so why should I fear it. It’s what comes after death that keeps me up if I become nothing then what’s the point of my existence? Perhaps I developed this fear when I stepped “Inside the Fire” (which is a song by one of my favorite bands Disturbed, look up the song in order to understand what I’m talking about) which eventually lead me to find comfort in religion, which is explained by Psalm 23:4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”.
I do not fear what I feared in 8th grade, freshman year, and sophomore year. In 8th grade I feared the death of my Grandfather, after his wife passed away he went into a depression which he hasn’t fully come out of. This fear has since then reappeared after hearing him tell my mom that he had a dream in which my grandmother came to him and told him he doesn’t have much more time and that he will be with her soon. My fear freshman year was finding “my name in the Diary of Jane” (“Diary of Jane” by Breaking Benjamin, listen to the song to fully understand what I’m saying). My biggest fear of sophomore year was hurting everyone I cared about, the song “Hate Me” by Blue October sums up that year with “hate me so you can finally see what’s good for you”.
My view of fear evolved from being simply in relation to me to being in relation to others. As I saw death affect the people in my family, my fears became based on other people. My fear comes from doubt, and simply doubt is something I’ve had since birth.
I stop myself from doing things all the time because of fear but the things I stop myself from doing could hurt my dreams. I regret things I’ve chosen not to do, but most of them have actually worked out to benefit me rather than hurt me. Fear is a good thing to feel because without fear we would never know the value of life. Fear is something you should feel often, fear keeps our perception of reality consistent. I deal with fear most often by running or writing, both are outlets that allow my thoughts to become free of all negativity.
I have so many fears, it should be a crime. They all range from a spider to losing all my family members in a car accident. Mary Manin Morrissey’s quote, “you block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith”, means, to me, that no matter how many times you want to reach your dream, fear will be bigger than your confidence. No matter how many times I try to block fear, it creeps up on me all the time. Fear, to me, is something that I am terrified of or doing. Fear is putting all of your confidence on the line, but immediately regretting putting your confidence on the line. My biggest fear is loving someone so much, whether it may be a family member, boyfriend, best friend, whomever, and showing that I love them to pieces and earn their love in return, but wake up one day to a message saying “I don’t love you anymore”. That thought scares the hell out of me. You think you have their love, trust, companionship, but to find out, you don’t. Spending months, years, minutes with this person, giving them your heart, your caring nature, your love, but then they throw it away as if nothing ever happened, like you were just another page in their book. That is my biggest fear- pouring your heart and soul into another person, who you think is doing the same, but waking up and getting a message saying they don’t love you anymore. I definitely have evolved my fear from middle school to freshman year. My fear in middle school, was literally a spider. I had no idea what love meant or what it meant to pour your heart and soul into another person. Freshman year, I was starting to evolve what my actually fear was, but nothing I feel now. It was never as deep as it is now. Putting your heart and soul into someone you love with all your heart, makes you think about things like this. I definitely do. Who wants to have their heart in someone, someone who gives them butterflies, someone you see yourself with in 10 years, someone you care so much about, but come to find out, they feel nothing to you. That’s fear. Of course I have other fears, but this one is my number 1. It definitely has stopped me from pouring myself into someone. I have my guard up when I meet new people, because you never know. I stop myself from saying things to people because it could mean nothing to them. But, with this fear, there is a good side. Having this fear means you won’t immediately pour your heart and soul into someone. You’ll give it time, to see where things are going- to see where their head is at. This will save you from being immensely upset later on.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a thought provoking quote. So many different fears pop into my head when I hear this quote. The quote by Marin Manin Morrissey means you will never be able to fulfill your dreams if you let your fears take over. This has happened many times for me but I have recovered from them. To me, fear is when you are so afraid of something that it holds you back from achieving your goal. As a child I was fearless. Now that I am older, I have so many fears. I have fears of death, not being good enough, and a big fear of heights and getting cancer. My fears may sound stupid but they mean a lot to me. Everyone has some type of fear about death, whether it be the fear of yourself dying or the fear of your parents or friends. I try to imagine what it would be like to lose a mom, dad, sister, or brother but it is just so hard to imagine. I honestly don't know what I would do if I lost them. I ask myself questions like will I ever succeed without their support or how will I turn out when I get older. So many things run through my mind when I think about this situation. It's one of those situations you never want to experience. I have this huge fear of heights that stop be from doing so much. I literally am scared of anything that's high. The bleachers in the gym, I will only go up 3 rows. It's pretty bad actually because I don't ride roller coasters, I'm scared to look over railings, and I'm scared of elevators. Everything that has to do with heights I will not be here. I will never get on a ladder or go in my attic because the steps are too high. This might be a stupid fear but it's my biggest one and it holds me back from doing so many things. I want to be able to go to six flags and ride everything but I can't because of this fear. I try to get over it but I can't. Something inside me just won't let me. This brings to me my next biggest fear. Getting cancer is something I never want to imagine and I hope I never have to. Cancer runs in both sides of my family so I have a high percentage of getting it. My uncle and pop pop passed away from cancer and my Grand mom lost one of her boobs from cancer. It scares me every time I think about it or when my mom has to go get her thyroid checked to see if she has it. Knowing how high of a chance I have always have to watch myself so I don't end of getting it but anything can happen. I try to not think about it but it always crosses my mind with a what if this or what if that. The things that keep me awake at night are just random thoughts that pop up in head. They usually are about anything even if they don't make sense. My fears have always been the same since I was about 6 or so. I have always been afraid of heights or death but the cancer one developed a couple years ago. The idea of fear evolved into something so much bigger than I thought it was. It took away somethings in my life but I'm perfectly fine without them. I'm guessing these fears came from my mom. My mom has the same fear of heights as me and I'm pretty sure she has the same one about cancer. I stop myself all the time from doing things I want because of my fears. I don’t regret not doing what I want because of my fear. Not riding a rollercoaster doesn’t really have a major impact on my life that would make me regret my fear. Sometimes fear can be a good thing. Sometimes when fear takes place, you tend to react in a good way.
ReplyDeleteThere's a quote that strongly relates to my life. I kind of am in denial about it ."You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."-Mary Manin Morrissey, it means don’t be afraid to do what you want with your life let there be no roadblocks or setbacks that keep you from what you want and don't ever let it be fear. You have to have faith and be able to believe in yourself to get where you want to go.There're so many interpretations others may have for this quote.There's meaning, many different meanings at that you go from dreams to fears then to faith and people may divide the three up as different interpretations and combine them together.
ReplyDeleteMy fear is uncontrollable, I have dreams that some days I feel like are bigger than this world and they could never ever come true. It hurts me that some of my dreams are so out of reach and I have no way to grab grasp of them.I'm scared of things that I don't know if I can stop being scared of that. I'm not scared of the dark, but I'm scared of the unknown more than anything, so maybe I am scared of the dark because it's unknown what the dark holds. Because of my fear of the unknown, I am continuously blocking out all of my dreams. My fear has ways of affecting most of the things I do, it affects my thinking and my decisions and my brain and my heart. Before doing anything risky or sometimes fun, my fear takes over and Is till don't know to this day what the outcome could have been if I actually went out and did something risky. But most of all I'll never know and that is an another fear to what could have been based off my decisions its s scary to me how one thing could change everything and how I always think long term about every choice I make.
A lot of people say, "If you want to do something you have to believe you can do it.", or they will go as far as saying "You can’t just want it, you have to believe you need it to be able to achieve it.". I honestly agree, but I find that harder than anything, how do you control your own fears and not allow them to take over when they are internal. You need fear in your life but not an over extensive amount that blocks you from your dreams because nothing should. I have a fear, which is a flaw but ill be scared of that forever it may change my life but I'm willing to accept that or who knows ill change it, I have many years to decide that.
ReplyDeleteWhen I hear this quote it translates in my head saying that, when you let fear, intimidation, and other people's opinion be more important than your overall dream then you will never reach it.
Fear to me is being afraid to see what's to come in the end. Fear is being scared to go out and do something because you know it has dangers attached to it. Also, fear causes you to settle for the norm because you're scared to see something even bigger and better on the other side of the road. My biggest fear in life which might seem a little weird is to get kidnapped and then get tortured to death like in those criminal minds episodes. Well actually, I guess you could just say I fear death itself. I never like talking about people dying, neither do I like thinking about it. But besides physical things I also fear not living up to certain people's standards sometimes. Especially in gymnastics you're supposed to have a certain look to you and the coaches expectations of you are so high all the time, and I just never want to disappoint my coaches.
A fear that keeps me awake at night is when i think there's a monster in my room. Like no lie, I still have to check my closet every night to make sure nobody’s in it before I lay down to go to sleep. And these fears that I have now have always been my fears all through high school basically. A new fear that I came upon in highschool is not being able to get straight A’s anymore. All my life up until high school I was a straight A student and then highschool happened. And ever since then I fear of not getting straight A’s.
Even though fear is apart of my life I try not to let it control me. I still have to always remember the end goal that I'm trying to reach and push those fears right out of the way. This is never an easy thing to do but i know that it's something people must do if they want to move forward and reach their dreams. But fear can also be a good thing because it could be triggering that you are about to do something that isn't safe and could possibly be dangerous. For example, if someone was about to rob a bank and they started to become fearful then that is a good thing because their brain is telling them that it isn’t the best thing to do.
Mary Morrissey’s statement I believe speaks for itself, when fears grow dreams shrink. The faith one once had begins to get lost and well no one can succeed without faith. Fears are a terrible thing. They are what hold the average person back, I believe fears are that little voice in your head that is always putting you down it is the reason one can not always act as oneself.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest fear in life is not succeeding. I know that is so generic as it is probably something a ton of people will write about but that literally is the one thing that keeps me up at night. By not succeeding I don't mean like that annyong AP kid mentality where we complain over a B I mean like not making it in the real world. What if all of this, this whole long stinking strenuous stressful high school was a failure. What if I graduate and then can't get accepted to college or worst what if I graduate get accepted to college and then end up flunking out or dropping out because i do not know how to deal with all of the stress of the real world. Them imagine not being able to get a job which means I would not be able to take care of myself. I know that all sounds so crazy and dramatic but that is my biggest fear, simply not succeeding in life.
Fears change though this fear is not the same one I had in 8th grade of freshman year of even sophmore year. The biggest fear I had in 8th grade was not having enough people like me that is what kept me up at night. Now, I still fear that but I have come to accept the fact that is is not something that I have much control over. Freshman year my biggest fear was getting bad grades. Now I do not even think I care about my grade. Well to an extent I do not care what the number is as long as I am learning something. Sophomore year I believe my biggest fear was making the wrong decision, for example whether to do crew the sport my parents love to see me do or stage crew what I like to do and simply the group of friends I hung out with stresses me I never knew whether or not I was making the right decision for almost every decision I made. That is still one of my biggest fears, but due to the lack of way I have found to change that it does not keep me up at night as much.
The evolution of my changing fears I think comes from me changing. As I ever so slowly grow older and mature my fears start to become less childlike or ridiculous and start to mend into something an actual adult would be thinking. My definition of fear in general though has taken more of a turn for the mature as I grow. Fear no longer means spiders and heights it means losing a loved one and the future. This evolution of fear all comes with age.
Quite often though I stop myself from, doing things that I might want to do because of fear. I care a whole heck a lot about how others see me therefore often I stop myself from raising my hand in a class or speaking out of fear of others opinions. I may also not join a sport for the fear of not being that good or I may not take the classes that I really want to for the fear of not looking as smart as my fellow classmates. Most of the time I regret the decisions that I make out of fear, yet I still m smkr them. It is one of those thing that one just simply cannot seem to grasp the control of. No matter how hard I beat myself up about that stupid decision I always make it again because I believe the other outcome may just be worst.
On rare yet existing occasions fear is okay to feel. The first example that comes to mind is the one that most children has heard from their parents at least once in life. When a teen is hanging with their friends and their friends start to make bad decisions it is okay to be fearful and in those instances one should let fear take control. If one is afraid to partake in the same activities as their friends they shouldn't in that case. Fear has won, but that is okay.
DeleteTo be honest I do not quite know how fear can be dealt with because I have not figured that out yet. It takes control of my life a lot and once someone can give me the magical key that teaches me how to shut fear of I would be much more happy.
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ReplyDeleteMy interpretation of the quote “you block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith” from Mary Manin Morrissey, is that when you allow yourself to fear greater then you allow yourself to have faith then you are essentially holding yourself back from accomplishing what ever it is you intended to do. For me, fear is the feeling you get when you know that something bad is going to happen. My biggest fear is that people are misleading me because you can never really know someone's true intentions with you. They can lead you on to believe that one thing is true when they actually don’t mean anything they’re saying. In previous years my biggest fear was being embarrassed. Whether I was embarrassed by failing, or saying something stupid or doing something stupid, I was deathly afraid. This caused me to also feel afraid when other people got embarrassed because I was able to empathize with how they felt. Throughout the years my fears have evolved from being afraid of my actions to being afraid of other people's actions towards me. I've always tried my hardest to push through my fears because most of the time it can make you a stronger person. I tell myself that whatever happens, happens and I'm going to learn from it and grow from it but too often I find myself retreating from my fear instead of facing them. I usually regret not saying something that needs to be said. Because I am such a straight forward person I don’t like to dwell on things. Once I deal with an issue I like to move on even if that means not saying something that needs to be said. Usually whatever it is that I regret not saying has something to do with sticking up for myself or defending myself along with my views. Fear is always a good thing until it starts holding you back from great things, because it alerts you of danger and allows you to think about things more rationally. A lot of times fear keeps me from doing or saying things that could cause me to get into a lot of trouble. Looking back these fears are rational and helpful because the consequences would not have been worth the action.
ReplyDelete"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."
ReplyDeleteTo me, this quote is stating that fear is more powerful than faith. In my opinion, this quote is saying that the fear of failing during the journey to reach the faith overpowers and overwhelms the individual so that he begins to doubt himself and eventually give up. Fear reveals the hardships awaiting a person and because of this enlightenment, so to speak, the person begins to break down and give up. The fear shows the person that all the hardships and tough times are not worth the ultimate goal on the other side of the bridge and this makes the person search for an easier path across the river. But this "new" path, that the person thinks is easier, leads to a different place and with it he will reach something else that might as well be the opposite of the intended goal. And this brings me to what I think about "fear."
I see fear as a challenge. I look at it as a challenge that will determine the willpower of an individual. Fear rises when one thinks about the tough times that he must go through for the goal. This immediately triggers a sense of fear and thus thoughts of giving up begin to flow into the mind. Now this becomes a challenge to determine how strong of a person the individual is and if he is willing to go up against and eradicate the negative thoughts that overflow his mind. It is not easy to do so, though. It is not easy to battle with oneself and this is why fear becomes a challenge. To beat it, one must constantly battle this evil dragon and try to slay it and impress the princess that will reward him with a kiss(which means to overcome fear).
Currently, my biggest fear is not to be able to keep up my grades as I wish and not to get accepted to the college that I want. Completing schoolwork and getting a high grade is my top priority, as well as becoming stronger for crew. I was not overly concerned about college my first two years of high school, though I was concerned about my grades. To put it in simpler terms, I believe that I am afraid of time. I have heard many times that for adults time flies. I have also thought about how soon I will leave high school, enter college, finish college and get my degrees, get a full time job(hopefully), and begin raising a family. Then what? That is the question I ask myself. Even though this is not connected to the aforementioned fear of mine, I fear time, in general, as well.
My fears have changed over the years. As I grew up, I began learning more and began understanding more things and thus thinking more. As a younger boy, I used to be afraid of talking to girls. I was a shy little boy and talking to girls was bizarre in my opinion. If I ever did talk to a girl, I would sweat my face off. Thinking back to it now, such a fear is insignificant to me now. But I did not know any better. I did not know much or thought about life at all, so I was just afraid of little things. Fear has changed over time for me. My fears have evolved from meaningless things to meaningful ones. But this does not mean that I crash every time fear arises within my mind. Over time I have learned to deal with my fears by constantly opposing them. I oppose fear with confidence. Whenever I begin to fear that my grades will never be what I want them to be, I shut those thoughts out as best as I can and begin to fill myself with confidence. I begin pumping myself up and with this I slowly move forward across the bridge to cross the river. But I do not always do that. Sometimes fear is good. Fear, if wielded well, is a type of motivation. There are two ways to gain motivation. One is that there is a very big and bright goal ahead that drags you towards it and the other is an angry dog chasing you, trying to bite ya' butt off, that makes you run towards the goal. Fear is that dog chasing you. The fear of not getting the schoolwork done and not getting the best grade that I can is a drive for me to do my assignments, though it is not the best choice. This is the easier path to get things done. As I mentioned before, fear makes a person find easier paths to reach the destination and the motivation that it gives rise to is easier than the other type of motivation as well.
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ReplyDelete“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.” This quote by Mary Manin Morrissey most clearly means to me that when you do not trust in God whole-heartedly fear gets the best of you. My interpretation of fear is any doubt that haunts your mind. Fear is totally mental and we control it. My biggest fears in life are the chances I may be a nobody and that I won’t find someone to love. Yes, I’m still really young but I have only recently started to get close with people, other than my family. I’ve always been kind of an introvert in some ways and like my quiet “me” time, unlike regular teenage girls who have a friend by their side 24/7. Sometimes I feel as though I missed great friendships with people that my introvert self accidentally pushed away (my trust issues probably don’t help too much either.) I’m working on this quality in myself, it’s not one of my favorite characteristics and I’m afraid it’ll pull away from great people. These were not always my fears. In the beginning of high school I became afraid of other people. I was afraid that kids would judge my every move, afraid that no one cared about me, and afraid that I was too chubby for anyone to love. My past experiences with a few mean little kids drew me to these conclusions. But I didn’t realize that along with the mean people in life there are also truly nice and trustworthy people. I also realized that people are just people; I am no greater or less than anyone else.
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteFear comes quickly and powerfully almost like a punch in the gut. I personally experience fear on a daily basis. Whether it is a big fear that I will fail a test or a small fear that someone will notice my un-plucked eyebrows, they are mind battles I fight every day. On multiple occasions I didn’t do something that I should have because I was afraid. For example, the last couple years I have not given my all at auditions for the musical because I was afraid that I would look stupid or would sound out of place. Maybe if I gave it my all I would have gotten a better part in the musical or the director would have seen me as a potential for lead roles in the future. Who knows? Also, fear has caused me to miss out on really cool experiences. In the summer of 5th grade my family went to Maine and we stayed on a tiny cabin on the side of a lake. This giant rock stood in the center of the lake and people kayaked there to climb and jump off of the monstrosity. My brothers had a ball jumping, flipping, and “cannon-balling” off that thing, of course while I sat in my kayak waiting for their fun to end. I climbed it several times with the intent of jumping but the water always looked too far away. So I’d just climb right back down and lay in my kayak until the splashing and fun ended and it was time to leave. Fear, not to be confused with caution and an intelligent decision, does not have any positive results. It holds us back from great opportunities and is the culprit of causing stress. The only remedy to fear is to fight it off. Fear is a rush of negative thoughts, its greatest opponents are positive thoughts. If you put your fear into perspective it may not seem so big and if it is big pray. Yes, someone could be looking at my un-plucked eyebrows but I look FINE in this shirt today and only God can judge me!
ReplyDelete"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith." Mary Manin Morrissey.
Between roaming the internet and my mind for an appropriate answer to the list of questions and I found myself on Urban Dictionary. As odd as that sounds, going on there really helped me come to a few conclusions; one, that people are idiots sometimes and two, sometimes people are really smart such as these next people I’m going to talk about. Three totally different people shared their definition of fear and faith and here are the results:
• “Faith- Insubstantial, irrational belief” -unknown
• “Faith- Glorified Ignorance”-unknown
• “Fear- Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.”-unknown
All of them I feel correctly and abruptly explain faith and fear. When Morrissey’s quote refer to fear and faith I feel they work hand in hand because both are a form of ignorance but one has more pull than the other. The quote supports the weight of fear no matter what faith or religion one is. Ultimately meaning that if there was no fear, there would be no boundaries to what we could do and achieve.
My definition of fear is it is the one thing that can totally control someone’s life and honestly demolish one’s dream or mind. Most of my fears include things such as spiders, SAT testing, creepy guys with vans…you get the gist, but my all time fear is failure. I know I am not the only one in the world who has this fear but it is unique to everyone. So to relate it back to the quote, my idea of faith is not religion or an ultimate destiny but basically what I am meant to do in life based off my actions throughout. This fear constantly keeps me awake at night. If I have a test the next day I think and recite the possible answers in my head until the day of and I choke. Failure has always been a big chip on my shoulder ever since the seventh grade; I guess you could say that is when stuff started to “get real”. Just over the years the fear became more intense and lingering because high school is make it or break it there is no in between. These years determine your life and it is the ultimate challenge. Authorities do not even want us driving on our own let alone make a decision so monumental that can determine your life. It makes no sense.
Often I find myself stopping myself from doing certain things because of that fear. As I have grown older I have progressed with my decision making skills and can somewhat predict whether or not what I am about to do will be an “epic fail” or not. I have stopped myself countless times from doing some of the stuff I love public because of this fear of failure, in my mind I want to be that one person who is perfect although it will never happen to me let alone anyone else. But the one thing I have concluded on it that as I live my life and mature more and more I know that I will overcome the intensity of this fear simply because I will have more experience with the real world for once. This, I think, will make all the difference… with any fear.
ReplyDelete"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."
I relate fear as the devil in disguise sometimes. This quote by Mary Manin Morrissey is true, but why do we do this ? Is it the lack of self-confidence ? We should have faith in our dreams and believe. You're already at fault when you doubt yourself. We can’t let fear get in the way of our success. The fear of you failing only brings your self-confidence down. Sometimes you have to take risks to keep your dreams alive.
Fear remains as an emotion that I tend to not encounter because I always try to avoid them. When you take caution confronting the noun you fear. Anything that gives me unattractive consequences is what I fear.
My biggest fear would have to be failure. The only enemy I have is myself. When I start something that's difficult I always think of giving up but failure can’t be an option for me unless I let it. This fear is like a creed to myself, to make me strive for better. My freshman year is when this fear of mine really kicked in. Being told that every decision I make in high school reflects on where my future will lead gave me the fear of failure. The fear of failure has made me a better person and reformed my character. This fear will never go away because failure can happen anytime and it will happen. I just have to be able to learn from it.
I stop myself from doing something because of fear all the time. There’s laws set in place that make fears more realistic. If I would be able to walk into Wawa and take anything I want for free damn right I would. But I know that consequences will be ahead if I do this. If I was to walk into Wawa and steal an item the fear of me getting caught would be too overwhelming. Having common sense, I would tell myself “wtf are you doing Larry put that down”. Around this time last year I made a dumb mistake that I regret so much. I really wanted to be on the varsity wrestling team my sophomore year and I made it. There was a 145lb open weight class and I took it. It was our first quad-match against Absegami, Hammonton and Williamstown. I had to make scratch weight or I wouldn’t be able to wrestle. A day before the match I decided to eat a cheesesteak and chinese food. The following day (Match Day) it was finally time for my first high school varsity match. I was so pumped and gassed. Before the match starts all the coaches had to make sure I made scratch weight. I weighed-in 145.4lbs. I regret eating all that food the day before my match. Ever since that day I learned my lesson and took my diet more seriously while in season.
Fear is a good when you finally or already have faced them. Once you’ve been hit by that fear you should know how to handle it just in case it happens again. You keep
yourself alert and prepared for the worst if your fear comes along again.
When you lose confidence and let your fear overtake you, your dreams will be shattered.
ReplyDeleteFear to me is an inhibiting factor in almost anything and everything. When I take a test, fear is there. When I audition for a role, fear is there. WHEN I SEE A SPIDER, fear is there (I have bad arachnophobia, but like real arachnophobia). Fear is when your emotions get the best of you.
One of my biggest fears is failing. The idea of failure gives me extreme anxiety and even panic attacks. There have been many occasions where the fear of failure has forced me into a state of severe distress, and many sleepless nights. There is a fear of a chain of events of failure. All of my life, I have been told to do well in school, to get a good education, and to strive for the best grades in order to get a scholarship. I never want to disappoint my parents.
This failure does not just have to do with my education and future, it also has to do with looming auditions and tests. Auditions are overly stressful for me because I tend to overthink the results and basically say to myself, “what if” a thousand times. I try not to let my nerves get the best of me, but no matter how much I try to calm myself down, something always goes awry. Well, auditions for the musical were today. Ariel is literally my dream role, plus I don’t see myself really fitting anywhere else into the show. There are so many good people in this show, but there are way too many girls, so really if I don’t fit into Ariel, I don’t fit into anywhere else. So, if I didn’t blow the judges away, there’s no way I’m getting a decent part, let alone Ariel. Let’s just say, that I screwed it up. And of course, I’m just sitting back, waiting for the cast list. Waiting for my worst fear to be confirmed, that I failed.
On another note, a test where I do not feel like my head and heart are going to explode and overheat, is considered a good one. Standardized tests, like the SATs usually go, swimmingly… Not. Don’t get me wrong, good test scores and grades get me into AP classes, it’s just that sometimes the fear of failure gets to me studying and taking the test. The anticipation for the recent SAT scores that I just took is making me a little antsy.
My fears have definitely changed since I was in say, 8th grade. I have noticed that my fear of failure started in high school. That’s when everything just sort of fell onto my shoulders. Counselors, parents, teachers, and more always saying how important high school is and how important it is to get good grades for colleges. For a new high schooler, it’s hard to hear all of these things and not have your head spin.
There have been plenty of times where fear has been a reason of holding me back, especially in productions, games, and try-outs. There have been plenty of times when I have been so nervous, that I thwarted an audition. These nerves make me shake in my boots and question myself. In hockey games, a fear of missing makes me hesitate. Lastly, in South Jersey Chorus try-outs, I freak myself out, even though the judges can’t even see me. This results in me never getting to be in the top alto one’s, even though I know I can live up to that potential. I always regret feeling this way because again, I know I can live up to my potential, and I miss so many opportunities.
Fear is a thing that is felt by everyone, whether they have different definitions or not. Fear is normal and is not considered harmful unless it is inhibiting. Many go to counselors or psychiatrists because they cannot control their fears from getting in the way of their everyday life. It can either hold you back, or shoot you towards the stars; fear is all in the way you use it. As for me, I haven’t really found a way to deal with my fear. For now all I can do is take deep breaths.
Make a wish!
DeleteIf you allow the fear of yourself not succeeding, you will never allow your dreams to fully burgeon into it’s full potential. That’s what I see from Mary Manin Morrissey's quote,” You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.” You need the belief that you can succeed in whatever you do. You’re the only one that can decide if something is impossible or not.
ReplyDeleteFear can be an arrangement of things. That’s why there’s so many phobias in the world. Such as arachnophobia, androphobia, bibliophobia, or a weird one called Defecaloesiophobia.
Sure my fear can be put into a category, but these are the ones only special to me. I have two major ones that I’ll talk about. The first is common.
I suffer from Arachnophobia, I hate Spiders with a dying passion. With their eight beady eyes and eight legs. Spiders are truly the master killer. Your a fly, and you’re just minding your business while flying through the air. And you suddenly become trapped in the silk of the deadly arachnid. You try so hard to escape it’s impervious grip, and you can’t escape. You accept the fate and watch as you founder into death as the spider slowly wraps you up in her silk of evil and then sucks the blood out of you like Bram Stoker’s infamous blood sucker of the night. At the age of seven I had my first experience with spiders. I woke up from my sleep and i felt something on my arm. I look over and it wasn’t kind old charlotte on my arm, it was man killing blood sucker on my arm. It was about as big as my thumb and I was terrified. If you’ve ever heard me scream before, I sound like a girl who just went into a haunted maze and was grabbed by a person with a fake chainsaw. I screamed so loud, I actually peed my pants, even though I hate to admit that, it actually happened. I jumped off my bed and the spider went flying into the wall. Luckily for me, I had my mommy to the rescue and she killed it for me. Ever since then, i’ve been deathly scared of spiders. I just wish all spiders would die.
My other fear is Glossophobia. Which is the fear of Public Speaking or trying to speak. I always had a shy side to myself, and that’s also why I have a small stuttering problem. I get so scared of speaking in a conversation or to a crowd of people that I start to stutter because i get so nervous of messing up my speaking. Another aspect that contributes to my Glossophobia is my self-esteem. I never felt the way I talked qualified with how others talked. I felt that I sounded stupid the way I portrayed my voice and I thought i wasn’t good enough for people to actually listen to me. Even sometimes in the AP Lang class when i hear or read other people’s writing pieces it just astonishes me how such a use of grandiose vocabulary can make a piece so beautiful, and I feel my pieces are bland like toast by itself. But i’m slowly learning that my writing is just as good as anyone else’s. I still have this fear, but when I do speak publicly I always remember that i’m just as good as anyone else.
Fear is only acceptable if you allow it. Obviously with me I still need to learn to overcome my fears. But I think it’s good to have fears sometimes, it shows that you have emotions and you don’t have to wear a mask to what you’re truly afraid of. Fear is real, but only as a choice.
To me, Mary Manin Morrissey’s quote, “You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith", means that when an individual gets afraid of not achieving his/her dream rather than having faith in himself/herself in achieving the dream, he/she eliminates the possibilities of ever achieving the dream. Nikos Kazantzakis, a Greek writer, once said, “In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can”. Believe in your dream and don’t let fear overshadow your beliefs.
ReplyDeleteFear is an illusion in our minds that restricts us from doing things that we want to or have to do. Some fears exist in our minds due to similar unpleasantful occurrences in the past while other fears arouse due to the curiosity of the future. Some, however, have no apparent reason for occurring. When a person, whose is now scared of heights because she almost fell from the top of The Empire State Building, looks down again from a high place, willingly or not, it is likely that the person would feel nauseated. The act of looking down from a high place reminds the person of the first unpleasant encounter when she escaped Thanatos. When someone like me is curious about how his/her future is going to unveil, he/she is prone to being scared of it as well. We would try our best to defy our fate of whatever it is to make the end results better than what fate had in mind.
My biggest fear is not becoming the man I want to be when I grow up. I realize that it is a bit too early to worry about it, but whenever I think about it, I cannot stop myself from worrying the hell out of myself. I constantly think about how every action of mine would contribute to me becoming the man I want to be. Sometimes I laugh it off as a sarcastic joke in order to relieve myself of the tension and stress. Thinking about what would happen to me if I didn’t get into a certain college or if I didn’t do well on the SAT or the AP tests keeps me awake every night (as well as tons of homework).
Like I said in an earlier blog post, when I was small, I used to fear heights and many other silly things. In 8th grade, I transferred over to Davies from a school in a town near Philly. It was yet another change and another new environment for me to get used to. At first, I was uncomfortable with the change since, all of the sudden, I was surrounded by bunch of strangers. It was one of the worst times. First, I was put into ESL again, even after acing it, for 3 MPs and I was forced to take the tests. I hated them! Then, I was put into basic math class instead of Algebra I (which is what I took in 8th grade at Philly before transferring). It was only after a while that they changed me to Algebra I because I got 100s in every assignment and test. I missed all the class opportunities and clubs at Davies because I was oblivious to them. If I knew that STEM existed then I would’ve taken it, but since I had ESL, they put me in Spanish for the 4th MP. I was afraid to speak up. I was afraid that me speaking up would cause deleterious effects on my school studies. It was the same for my freshman year. In my sophomore year, I actually overcame that fear and spoke up against my guidance counselor for not letting me take a 8th class which some of my classmates were allowed to do but not me.
I deal with my fears by confronting them as I did with my fear of heights and my fear of speaking up to others.