[Akagi]

Originally Posted by Omkazn

The fear comes from NOT knowing the other side, To use an analogy, its like i see the river and the landmass across the river, but i only see a few feet inland, and its the fear of not knowing what lies beyond and knowing that you have to MOVE your whole life across this river and set up camp in another place that is scary.

Sounds like fear of change. I'm pretty familiar with that, as I used to have it a a bit myself until I identified the problem.

People get into habits and become comfortable with them. The problem is, life is dynamic. Life is like water. Life moves about, changes, and requires one to adapts to those changes.

People get locked into this 'comfort zone' mentality where they have been doing something a specific way for so long that to deviate from that pattern causes them stress and fear. It's why people who have been reclusive for most their lives for whatever reason(s) find it hard to blend in socially. It's a drastic change for them. It's why people let good things go to waste and have opportunities pass them by. For instance, there was a guy I know who was always in dire straits financially. One day opportunity came knocking. He had a once in a lifetime chance to make a lot of money without taking any serious risk, pay off all his debts, and retire early with a nice position that he would have been guaranteed due to having inside connections. He was so accustomed to living in this small-town area with his friends that he didn't want to leave. He let that fear hold him back, and now he's kicking himself because all his friends got out of that small town and moved on while he's still stuck there in the same state he was before. He let the fear hold him back and now he's in a worse position than he would have been if he had just confronted it.

Frank Herbert said it best in his novel "Dune":

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

One has to overcome thier fears instead of being controlled by them. Everybody experiences fear at some point in their life. I find it's best to just dive in and tackle it head-on.

The fear people anticipate in their own head is almost always worse than anything they could experience in real life, and they let that fear dictate their actions. They create this psychological pain for themselves before they've even done anything. They psyche themselve in to failure, basically. People defeat themselves from the inside with fear before they've even take their first step, and that's what causes a lot of failures.

Fear is a poison of the mind. The antidote is willpower and guts to fight through it. Fear shouldn't be something that paralyzes you. One should turn it around and use it a source of motivation. Psychoanalyze yourself. Ask yourself why you are experiencing this fear. Is it because you have fallen into to the 'safety blanket' mentality like so many others?

Another interesting quote on fear I came across in an anime series I frequent:

"That which blocks you is worthless fear.
The enemy is one, you are one.
What is there to fear?
Cast off your fear!
Look forward!
Go forward!
Never stand still.
Retreat and you will age.
Hesitate and you will die."

I took those words to heart. You can't let fear control you or you'll look back and regret it. You may not know what's on the other side of the river, but if the side you are on is unsatisfactory, then you just have to grab your balls and break on through to the other side.

It is said that problem solving is 90% problem identification 10% solution. That has rung pretty true for me. Whenever I am having internal conflicts myself; fear, uncertainty, doubt - if I can just identify the problem, the source of discontent, I can make it go away through the power of my own mind. The problem is caused by the mind, so it is logical that it would be corrected through the same means as well. So far this has worked amazingly well for me. I haven't had to see any psychiatrists or counselors to assist me yet because of it. All they're going to do is probe me and essentially try the same thing as well. Who knows ones' mind better than the person who has it?

I used to have issues with confidence a lot as a kid as well. Some time around high school, I discovered that all one has to do is act out the change they want to see in themselves and stick to it. It wasn't easy (nothing ever worth doing is) and I had to deal with a little cognitive dissonance, but I didn't like the results I was getting, so I changed things around. A shift in mentality, so to speak. First thing I did was I stopped letting other people label me and started to define myself. If you judge yourself critically, you see others judging you in exactly the same way; and when you live in a world where everyone judges you as harshly as you do to yourself, it's impossible to feel good and be confident.

Our minds are constantly reminding us about the kind of person we think we are. No matter where we are or what we’re doing, our mind is always there to call up everything that’s wrong with us. This could be triggered by looking in the mirror, interacting with other people, or thinking about a particular problem. Regardless of what triggers these thoughts, they can all be boiled down to feelings. Feelings play a big part when we paint a picture in our minds of who we are. Intelligent people can feel stupid. Thin people can feel fat. Young people can feel old. Talented people can feel like losers. It came to me as an epiphany: my confidence was based on how I saw the world around me.

Confidence is an excellent weapon in cutting down one's fears and hesitations. I've noticed that a lot of people are natural actors. Not the type that plays in hollywood movies, but rather ones that put on a front in their social interactions. They put on a front to seem more confident than they are, stronger than they are, smarter than they are, more successful than they are.

The thing about acting is, when you're dealing with intangible traits that can't be quantified like confidence, if you pretend that you have it long enough and pull off the act well enough, you'll quickly realize that the only difference between feigned confidence and actual confidence is the way you perceive it in your own mind. Nobody else can tell if you're acting or not, so why not let them go on believing whatever makes you look best? That feigned confidence will eventually be perceived as real confidence, and thus become it since the only qualifier is how you see it in your own mind. And confidence is crucial in addressing issues with fear.

Whether you think you can or you can't, you're probably right.

Edit: I noticed that Shamou posted a most excellent quote that illustrates the concept I'm trying to convey:

"To progress again, man must remake himself. And he cannot remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor. In order to uncover his true visage he must shatter his own substance with heavy blows of his hammer."

You must carve off that which holds you back. Discard those useless fear-containing chunks of marble surrounding yourself and get down to the true essence that is the inner core.