February 7, 2021February 7, 2021 Jeff

Fear: The Battle between Life and death

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Read: 6 mins.

Let’s start by imagining a bubble. A bubble that represents: Everything life has to offer. All the good, the bad, and the things that you could do with your life. Things that prolong life, things that shorten life, things that make you happy or upset.

Now let’s draw a circle within that bubble.

This is you…. or what’s left of you.

Part 1. The Discovery Phase (Early Years of Life)

When we are born, the world is our little oyster. We are curiously living out our life, slowly grasping the endless possibilities. At this point in time, the bubble of possibility is still full without limits as we do not have any distinction between “good” and “bad”, “right” and “wrong”. We have yet to connect actions with outcomes, along with their possible consequences. So at a time like this, we rely heavily on others for the process of our decision making. Our parents, teachers, influencers, people in positions of power. They shape our perceptions unbeknownst to us. We can’t help it, we are still helpless babies after all.

Discovery Phase – decision making:

During this phase, our decision-making is heavily influenced by our lack of capabilities. The main drivers that create the bubble we are comfortable in include:

1. Authority based decisions

• People who raised us, people we trust, and people in positions of power.
• We are told what to do, and usually follow without much question at this stage.

2. Limited Understanding/lack of knowledge

• Still trying to put the pieces together and gain some sort of worldview.

3. Emotion based decisions

• We like it? we seek more.
• We dislike it? we learn to balance the pros and cons. But oftentimes are overwritten by authority based decisions
• Pain, Sadness, Anger… Negative emotions invoking fear.

It is at this stage we learn a lot about how the processes of decision-making are built. Sometimes, we need to do things we dislike in order to survive, strive, and succeed. We need to balance instant gratification with future success. However, there will always be the underlying authority figures that have an influence to a certain degree over our paths.

This differs very far from the standard decision-making process. Which would look something like this:

1. Identify that a decision needs to be made.
2. Gather relevant knowledge
3. Find alternatives
4. Weigh the decisions and important factors
5. Choose an option
6. Take action
7. Review your decision & its consequences

But ultimately, in the Discovery Phase of life, we fall back to listening and following others in order to survive. Our life bubble ends up looking something like this:

A roughly formed “bubble” where you have decided, is where you will live life. A life restricted by the 3 drivers listed above.

Benefits of restrictions

However, living life with restrictions isn’t all that bad. As a matter of fact, there are great benefits from restricting our options. By following a regiment, we lower the amount of brainpower necessary to progress forward in life. Finding comfort in routines that progress. Especially when something is somewhat working, why question it?

The problem is what comes next…

Part 2. The stabilization Phase (Later half of the early years of life)

By now you have grown quite a bit. Your life has somewhat been on a routine for a while now. Your surrounding environment, things that you have grown quite accustomed to, from home to school, friend circles, etc. Life seems to be moving in a pretty set path, stable, and consistent. Once we have lived long enough, previously deemed “considerations for decision making” slowly move to what I call: the forgotten space. Where comfort overtakes possibilities, and complacency rules our lives. What was once decision-making turns into fear-based emotional hardwiring, and the possibility of life another way dies along with it.

Why? Over time, the lines that are drawn before, become more and more solidified as we repeatedly follow them without question or reasoning. As it’s ingrained into our brain as “our way of life”. Even so, it had made sense at the moment of decision making as it was based on incomplete knowledge, experience, and understanding of the overall picture. And once a line is drawn, it’s much easier to draw the same line again and again without going through the process of decision making.

In the stabilization stage, our lines from before become solidified, due to factors such as repetition, comfort, and resistance to change.

Comfort and Fear

To understand this a little better we need to explore Comfort in greater detail. In our previous diagram, we gained a general understanding of what life kinda is now, and how we will live it, based on the driving forces behind our decisions.

During the stabilization phase of life, your brain fills the gaps between reasoning and logic to protect what you have built, and the life-worldview you have created/locked yourself in, unable to move without intentional change. As our embodiment takes the form of the bubble that has been laid out for us, the driving forces of comfort provide you with reasoning such as “I grew up like this” or “This is the way I am”

Many people live their lives here. It’s comfortable, the outcomes are things you expect, and you don’t need to use any additional effort to change. On the flip side, fear is by far one of the largest resistance to change. So many things could go wrong, and people could come up with hundreds of reasons on the spot.

If I do this…

• “I’m scared”
• “I am going against what someone said, therefor against that person”
• “I’m going to be judged”
• “My status and self image will be lowered”
• “I’m going to fail”
• “I already came too far to change”
• …etc.

The list goes on and on, which makes many people stick to the standard quo. It doesn’t matter if the outcomes now are not optimal, or if they don’t make us happy, people just lack the drive to change something, even if they want to change. In the end, all of these endless life possibilities that used to be open to us, slowly whittle away.

The circle keeps us comfortable, but prevents us from growing.

Fear is a battle between life and death.

Fears are innately there to prevent us from doing something that can potentially harm us, whether that is physical (falling off a cliff), or emotional (making a fool out of yourself in a society with social norms, causing us to ruin our image and potentially losing opportunities), But most fears are more of a hindrance than anything else.

Life is really only what you make of it. I always say, “the more you put in the more you get out.” The same narrative works the other way as well, where if there is something you avoid, you will never get the chance to live that thing whatever it may be. Could be trying out something new: food, activity, games. Or it could be something people view as scary or traumatic like driving or public speaking. The longer we let our lines dictate where we go in life, the harder it will be to live life freely.

As fear manifests itself, so will the potential possibility of life disappear with it.

Part 3. The Re-Discovery Phase

Where lines are broken down and re-aligned.

At one point in life, we begin to notice that things aren’t quite as good as it seems. When life passes us by, running through the motions. The bubble we feel comfortable in has protected us from the unknown, but we crave for something different. This is the beginning of the re-discovery phase of life. And the sooner you get here and remain here, the more fulfilling life will become. First, a lot of success depends on how much luck of the draw you had with your childhood stat allocation.

Childhood Stat allocation

As we grow up, we have many stats that get developed along the way. And these stats have a heavy influence on our futures, with respect to our bubble. Here are some examples…

Stats that boost the chances of re-discovery:

• Courage & Bravery
• Rational & Analytical
• Knowledge stat
• Self-awareness

Stats that hinder the chances of re-discovery:

• Fear
• Resistance to change
• High negative Emotions
• conflict avoiding
• Comfort-seeking

With the proper development, one will enter the “Re-discovery stage” at different speeds of growth.

But that doesn’t mean these stats can’t be developed now, it just requires more effort to cultivate. After all, any sort of change requires time and effort. We can take small steps at becoming more courageous, and aware just by pushing ourselves a little here and there.

Spending time with ourselves.

The most important, however, is to spend time with ourselves. To re-discover why you have become who you are today, begin to ask yourself:

• Why is my line placed here?
• Should it be placed here?
• What would happen if I put it over there?
• Why am I the way I am?
• Should I be that way? Is that how I want to be?

Remember that each line is placed and solidified for different reasons so it takes a long time to slowly identify what lines you have in the first place. It could be something that your parents told you to do and value highly, which resulted in our views and actions. It could be that all your close friends act a certain way, so to fit in, you allowed certain actions to take hold in your life. It could be that certain actions may lead to very dangerous consequences and thus, are blocked off for life preservation reasons. So as you go about your daily life, try to take notice of what you avoid as you come across them.

When you reclaim the lines in your life, you begin to have the world open up to you. You get to choose what type of life you want, without fear in the picture. Why without fear? because you become clear with why you want and don’t want something in life. When the weight of “Fear” turns into reason and logic, fear of the unknown no longer draws the lines for you.

Fear is the battle between life and death, and Understanding allows you to take control.

The controller is in your hands

Jeff