Stop Being Scared

Stop being scared.

Easy for me to say, right? Or easier said than done. Or screw you, don’t tell me what to do.

Those are some nice examples of responses from scared people.

I see scared people everywhere. They pervade every aspect of our culture. Their pessimistic dribble covers the internet.

To be clear, I’m not talking about fear.

Fear is not bad. That elemental, neck prickling sensation, breathing low and heavy in the dark. That’s real and powerful. Fear can be one of the best survival tools in the right context.

Thing is, we hardly ever enter that context here in the U.S.

When was the last time you were walking down a dark alley in south Chicago by yourself? Surrounded by a screaming angered mob? Bleeding out of your femoral artery far from help?

These situations should inspire fear. Fear keeps you alive.

Fear is not the same as being scared.

Fear is an intuitional gut based electricity that provides an instinctive step by step plan to survive. Fear is time slowing down, and stretching in front of your eyes as the car next to you swerves into your passenger door.

Being scared is a failure of emotional response. Being scared is an excuse to not take any constructive action in the face of dissatisfaction. Being scared allows you to criticize without creating. Being scared does not alleviate problems, it feeds on them. Multiplies them.

One sure sign of being scared is attempting to diffuse it upon others.

Being scared creates the opportunity for the army of internet activists to state their obligatory pessimistic two cents and rest easy knowing that everything is ruined anyways and they did their best.

The thing is you never know your best until you go beyond comfortable actions. Which can be scary. You sure as hell won’t fix any problems by complaining about them.

Get up and go outside, into the world. Do something good for somebody or something and don’t tell anyone about it. Do this once a day, week, or month. Never mention your good deed to anybody, ever, for any reason. Do it selfishly. Receive a quiet thanks from the world and move on with gratitude for life.