I hate fear. Of all the emotions, it is the one that I think results in more bad than good. Wikipedia defines fear as “a distressing negative emotion induced by a perceived threat.” The perceived threat part of the definition is what I want to focus on.

Granted, the emotion isn’t a completely useless one. Say, oh I don’t know, the pan on your stove catches fire. You have to feel some level of fear to be compelled to ACT and put out that fire before it spreads and engulfs the house entirely. As that definition goes on to explain, “it is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger.” So essentially having that fear at that moment helps you save your life and protect your property. Good stuff, right?

But, I’m here to argue that such scenarios aside, I believe fear for the most part is an emotion that can have damaging and even tragic consequences. Take, for example, some of the fears that afflict the human race — other people who look different than us, live differently, act differently, eat different foods. Losing one’s job, house, a loved one. Uncertainty. Death. Hunger. What others think of us. Following our dreams.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said to the American people at his first inaugural address. It was 1933 at the height of the Great Depression — the economy had tanked and people had lost their land and their jobs. They were hungry and cold, but most of all they were hopeless and were afraid to spend or invest what little money they had. So here was FDR rallying the “troops” so to speak, and telling them the only way to revive the economic health of the country is to work together by pushing aside their fear, which he referred to as a “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

At the micro level, the fear that paralyzes me personally is that of following my dreams (to their fullest extent). So tangible is the fear sometimes that I literally feel a pulsating force holding me back from reaching the top of the stairs. I wish I could take it off of me like a blanket. But I’m working on it!

I have come to realize that I love the feeling of accomplishment, whether it’s crossing off something as mundane as “wash car” on my to-do list, or something that’s deeply fulfilling as writing an article about an issue that I really care about. I’ve realized, too, that accomplishment can’t be bought or gained in any other way than standing up to and overcoming one’s fears.

Whenever I’m scared that I’m not good enough, or experienced enough, or pretty enough or funny enough, I like to read this quote by author Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”