Fear

Fear is a strange thing.  It can paralyse you in an instant when it is aggressive, but when it is passive it can slow you down more and more until you stop moving entirely.  When fear is passive it's not always obvious that it is holding you back. Fear is like a shadow that's cast behind you, when you aren't looking back you can't see it, all you can see is the light that you reach for and constantly wonder why you can't reach it.

Fear takes many forms but in its most primitive state it is ambiguous and formless.  It's hidden.  In that state it is at its most dangerous.  We don't like to dwell on our fears or pay them head but if we don't we only leave it formless and limitless.  If you want to conquer a fear you need to define it.  You need to turn around and look at it.  As you begin to observe it, your observations give it form and that vast limitless entity transforms into a quantifiable state.  It is no longer limitless but defined clearly.

The fears that hold us back in life can be few or many, it all depends on what you as a person choose to acknowledge.  The things we pretend don't exist are the things we fear the most and ultimately they control us.  If you want to regain control then you need to acknowledge everything you are trying not to think about.

My biggest fears in life revolve around life, love, money, and happiness.  I don't fear life itself, I fear being denied life.  I am not talking about death in the physical sense here as I've been suicidal in my past and I've very much conquered that fear of death, when that comes I will accept it.  What I fear in being denied life is metaphorical, to steal a quote "to live doesn't mean you're alive" - it is this that I fear.  I don't want to just live and go through the motions, I want to feel alive.  My fear with love is not a fear of love itself either, again it's a fear that I will never know true love.  My romantic past can best be described as a train-wreck, the incidents and circumstance of this right now are irrelevant, what is relevant is that I fear I will die one day without ever knowing true love.  With money again I don't fear money itself but the thought of a complete lack of it.  I am unemployed and in search of work and as much as I try I can't find anything, that leaves me with the fear if I never find work I'm never going to be able to do anything I want to do in life.  Happiness is the sum total of your life and how content you are with the figure that results.  I'm not happy right now.  There are many things in my life I want to change but right now all of those things are in the hands of other people and I hate that.

These are my fears.  I've acknowledged some of them before but not all of them.  I know it can be heartbreaking to think about someone's life in this way.  I'm not asking for pity however, I'm sharing this because I don't believe I am alone.  I don't believe I am the only one that feels this way.  I don't believe that anyone out there no matter how good their life is, that there is nothing at all about their lives they would want to change.  I think it's important to stop and take stock of your life every now and then because if you don't then you fall far too easily into the routine of life, to the point where you just go through the motions.

"To live doesn't mean you're alive"
- Nicki Minaj