Fear is a necessary evil. It keeps us safe. It keeps us sane. Like most other developed instincts, fear stems from our need for preservation as a species. Without fear, we would lose our inhibition for self-destruction altogether. However, fear itself isn't perfect. It cannot completely distinguish what is truly detrimental to us from what isn't. So as a safeguard, fear takes effect against everything in the grey zone. To protect us from what will harm us. To protect us from what might harm us. To protect us from what won't harm us.
It is necessary for us to take control of fear, not let fear take control of us. As a boy, I was deathly afraid of failure, deathly afraid of embarrassment, deathly afraid of being an inconvenience to others. Thus, that little boy never tried, bound by the invisible grip of fear. But one day, that boy realised that not all fears are to be feared, that death was little more than an exaggerated figment of his imagination. Thus, on that day the boy made a resolution to live a life of living, even if it kills him. For even if he died, at least he died living, not died dying.
It is necessary to live not inhibited by fear, nor ignorant of fear but alongside it. Fear is a necessary evil because it is by definition, necessary. To live a life without fear is stupid but to live a life governed by it is sad. Thus, I walk, hand in hand with fear, into the abyss of the unknown, so that one day I may meet the face of what I so feared.
Because it is necessary to understand that in life, if we never try, we will never fail but neither will we ever succeed.
