Sometimes, We Live in Fear.

              It is the thing that creeps into us, punches us in the face, takes the breath out of our lungs. It is what tries to destroy potential for good and great and incredible. It is the opponent to dreams and goals and aspirations.
              Sometimes we fear every day things, like walking out of our front door. Making small talk. Dealing with any person. Sitting in a class room. Being late. Offending someone unintentionally. Being awkward. Our day being ruined.
              We fear being a person people hate. Hypocritical, inauthentic, unreliable, closed-off, selfish, shallow. We fear disappointing our parents. Being a human that was born to be untainted and successful but turns out to be everything but. We fear becoming people our friends talk about and resent and don't want to speak to. We fear getting hurt because we let ourselves be vulnerable, because we showed our scars. We fear people will stop trying to understand us, and we will stop trying to show them ourselves. We fear pain, guilt, change, loss.
              We fear failure. Oh, how we fear failure. We fear putting our heart and souls into what we want, and feeling as though it has amounted to nothing. We fear never living the lives we told ourselves so many times that we could live. That potential will manifest into nothing. We fear becoming the person we never wanted to become; by losing control, giving up, not getting help, allowing ourselves to fall into bad patterns, allowing ourselves to become jaded, nasty, unmotivated, lazy. Allowing ourselves to believe that we are meaningless. We fear returning to lives we hate. We fear having lives we hate. We fear hating our lives forever. We fear that things don't get better. Or that we won't have the patience to wait for it. Or that we don't deserve better anyway. We fear becoming our own worst enemy.
              And all of these bigger fears eat away at you, and become the reason why some days you can't get out of bed in the morning, or you want to crawl out of your skin sitting in a class room. The reason you get frustrated, or tear up, or snap at someone, or sleep for 14 hours, or can't sleep at all.  
              The emotion tries to pull at our tear ducts, make our heart race, turn our minds into unexplainable chaos. Sometimes you fall right back into how you felt when you were young. When you feared because you didn't know how things were going to turn out. You didn't know how severely you could be hurt. Then, you could cry, and your parents could comfort you and tell you that things would be okay; and this would make sense to you. It was over. We didn't have to figure anything out, we didn't have to agonize over questions and worries for hours and days and years. Your mind allowed itself to start over, because it didn't have enough damage, experience, or knowledge to make you think those answers weren't enough. Now our fear feels more complex, and even though there are still simple answers to our most daunting questions; it's become harder for those answers to make us feel resolve as easily as they did. We fear because the future is still just as uncertain. And we are supposed to be able to handle that.
              But the phrase "I'm going to be okay." still means something. It is still just as true. We are so terrified of irreversible damage, of destroying, when most things that can happen to you can be healed, can be fixed. And when it feels like things can't be mended or solved, just have faith they will. Although our fears can get the best of us some days, we don't have to succumb to them. We can't allow ourselves to drown in them. We are capable of overcoming them. We always have been, always will be. "I'm going to be okay" is still true, because you still care about how things are going to turn out. You still want the best for yourself. You don't want to settle. So you keep trying. It is the most courageous thing you can do.
             Sometimes we still want someone to tell us that were going to be okay. We can say it to ourselves, but things feel so much more real when they are said aloud. When they are said from one person to the next. We want to know we aren't ridiculous, that other people feel it too. That we aren't the only ones who get scared and it makes sense or it doesn't make sense but regardless we feel ashamed of it.
             I know that it can get extraordinarily hard to convince yourself that your fears are irrational. That they shouldn't make you feel the way they do. That they shouldn't be able to control you or stop you. They shouldn't, but it is hard to believe it. My biggest fear, without a doubt, is being unhappy, and I'm already there. It's a strange thing to be living in what you already know you are most afraid of. You would think there is nothing left to fear, but there is. Unfortunately. The mind is a complicated place.                
             Some days, I live my fear. Maybe every day I do, to some degree. But it's made be realize that unhappiness is scarier than dying. Feeling lifeless while you're breathing is scarier than death. Hope helps though. The things I care about do too. The world can seem like a place that only has the purpose of damaging you and destroying you, but it isn't true. All you can do is keep facing the things that scare you. Your small, big, severe, short-term, and lasting fears. Admit to them and deal with them. You become stronger every time you do. There is good that comes with fear, like the feeling you get when you overcome it. The feeling that you are invincible and capable. That is a moment to keep going for.         
           "If you are going through hell, keep going." -Winston Churchill