What do I have to fear? What do I have to fear? What do I have to fear?
Consider that question, my friends and word-lovers.
What do I have to fear?
There is only one answer, and it is the same regardless of the cause of the question. It is the same answer for every person, for every living creature, since the dawn of time until the dusk of time, for this time and all other eternities that come to rise.
We have only one fear. It is deeply rooted in the deepest part of our deepest self, something so innate that even the basest of life forms possess this fear.
It is this: we fear failure.
Simple. We fear that we are about to fail. Corner a wild animal, and it will fear for its life. Why? Because it fears it is about to fail to protect itself, or its young, and its life will end with that failure.
Nobody is afraid of heights. We are afraid we will fail to remain at that height and fall. Ask a jumper if they fear the fall, and the answer is No. They fear the parachute will fail to open.
Do you see? Do you really, really see? We fear failure, and failure alone.
We fear asking a girl to dance, because we fear we will fail. We fear submitting our writing to publishers, because we fear we will fail. We fear spiders, because, well, I can't explain that one. Spiders are a category unto themselves.
But for everything else, we fear failure. I say often that successful people are too stupid to realize they could fail. They are FEARLESS.
I have nothing to fear. If you know my story, you know I lost my son last year at 18mos old. My worst fear, that I would fail to protect my children, was realized. For nine months now, my courage has gestated, until this month it was borne unto a greater cause, and I plunge fearlessly into a new phase of my life. I embrace my fear. I embrace the huge changes coming. I embrace the fact that I could fail, because I could fail, and that failure, no matter how catastrophic, is a tiny drop compared to the fear I have already faced with the loss of a child.
Perhaps that is a small part of God's will in this, and his words as I read them are these:
Hope is the better part of fear. Your success depends on which is greater.
Are you fearless? Do you embrace the fact that you could fail? Do you equally embrace hope that you could ~succeed~?
- Eric
Eric W. Trant is a published author of several short stories and the novel Out of the Great Black Nothing. He is currently working on his second full-length novel with WiDo Publishing, coming in 2013! See more of Eric's work here: Publications ** BE A SUPER-HERO! BE AN ORGAN DONOR! **
