Facing Fears

The greatest concern affecting me right now is fear. The greatest cause of my fear I feel right now is the most common fear in all of life, fear of the unknown. The reason that fear of the unknown is so great is because of the power of our imaginations. Generally speaking our reality is not as dire, or horrific as the thoughts our imagination can create. When you’re a kid make believe monsters can be frightening, but through growing up you learn that monsters are not real and you stop fearing them. I believe that the best way to confront any fear is to define the fear, and devise a plan to control your fear.I am scared about the possibility of going back to jail for 30 days. Having to face thirty days is scary, but I believe the ramifications of having to do the time could be worse. If I have to do these thirty days I will certainly miss a trimester of school, which has potentially catastrophic ramifications. I am doing really well in school right now probably the best that I have ever done. I feel like I am on a roll and I have no interest in losing momentum. I applied to school before my criminal history began, and the school has no knowledge of my criminal history. If I was forced to withdraw from classes the school could investigate my history and potentially dismiss me from school. All the fears I have deal with potential consequences.My fears have been adequately defined, so now I need to devise a plan to control my fear. The greatest source of my fear is the unknown. I believe there are two ways to minimize the fear of the unknown. You can either stop caring about the unknown, or you can try to learn about what you don’t know so that you can prepare yourself. I believe the best plan of action for me is to try and minimize what I don’t know, by learning as much about my fears as I can. If I know what I am facing, I am better able to prepare for potential consequences and that gives me a feeling of empowerment. It is my belief that knowledge is power. The more informed a person is in any situation the greater there chance of making sound life decisions will be. This is why I ask questions, and try to find out as much about what bothers me as possible. The knowledge I gain from asking questions and researching gives me a comforting feeling that I am doing as much as I can to give myself the best opportunity to make correct decisions. My other option for minimizing my fear is to simply not care about the fear and put it out of my mind. This option may temporarily eliminate fear, but it does not help to solve your problems. If you always ignore your fears you have no chance of ever solving them, and while your fear will go away temporarily it will come back. When the problem comes back you will have learned nothing from ignoring the problem, and you will not be able to eliminate it until you face it through knowledge so that you can learn to conquer your fears for good. Knowledge is power and the more knowledge you have the better you will be able to control your life.