Overcome your fears.
Fear. A word that everyone knows only too well, including me. Fear is an emotion or the feeling you get when you are afraid of something or someone for a certain reason. In my life I have had to deal with different types of fears. When I was a little kid, my biggest fear was dying because my conscious mind switched on at the age of 7 when my dad told me that the sun will explode in countless years. My little mind didn't understand that I would be dead long before then. As I grew older, my fears changed and became more sophisticated. I had a fear of getting bad grades at school (I was anxious before every math test). I also had a fear of missing out, also known as FOMO (fear of missing out), which you may be able to relate to as this is quite common in today's generation. I never had social anxiety or anything like that, and I never thought it would be such a big deal. Why don't you just be confident? In the grand scheme of things, it's your life, not theirs, right? These questions weren't very helpful. I needed to understand that my way of dealing with anxiety wasn't for everyone. When I was scared or felt anxious, I thought from a rational perspective and dealt with it. It sounded like this: 'Tim, you're scared. "Why? I don't know, but... Well, hell, there's nothing to be scared of!" Yes, I do have these little self-talks and no, I'm not schizophrenic. This way of dealing with anxiety helped me a lot when I had minor problems. When the problems got bigger and the anxiety increased, this method of "hanging in there" wasn't so helpful anymore. I suspect that's why people who had minor anxieties in my eyes couldn't just rationally put them away. The fears were too big for them. Knowing me, being kind of obsessed with helping people, I wanted to understand how fear works. When I would understand that, I could help people that I love and care about.
Understanding the origin of your fears.
If you feel fear, this fear has its roots somewhere. The most obvious and rational fear would be sitting naked in a cave while it is cold outside and you can hear the wolves howling. This is called "rational fear" (RF). This has helped homo sapiens for thousands of years. When you feel RF, your body reacts with an extreme increase in adrenaline and all your senses are heightened. But this fear is not a problem. Irrational fears (IF) are the problem in our society because they have increased with modern technology. We worry about what other people think of us. We worry about the mean things people say to us, even if we don't like them. We think about future criticism that could affect our lives, and so on. Do you think a person living 80 years in the past would have these kinds of problems, or at least on this spectrum? No, of course not. They had bigger problems to deal with. If you suddenly feel anxious or scared, try to find out where this feeling is coming from. Am I scared because I didn't study for the exam? Then it's your own fault and stop complaining. Let's say you're afraid of rejection and that's why you don't talk to a girl or a boy. Well, nothing will change if you don't talk to that person. Even if the person rejects you (Oh no, I knew it, I'm a loser, nobody wants me!), stop feeling sorry for yourself and recognize the positive outcome of the situation. You made yourself feel better by talking to a stranger even though you were scared. It didn't work out the way you wanted it to, but that's not a problem at all. Journey>Destination. Ask yourself if you are in serious danger or just having an irrational fear.
Choose the fucks you give, I will die and so will you.
Let’s say you’re scared about what other people think about you. Do you live your life or the life of everybody else? Answer is pretty obvious, you live your life. Why do you care about the opinions of other people if they aren’t your friends or try to genuinely help you?
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Most ideas and dreams die because we as humans are pretty good at finding problems. That’s why we give fucks about all irrational things we can find. I recently finished the book “The subtle art of not giving a fuck” by Mark Manson. In one chapter he talks about the loss of one of his close friends when he was a teenager. He and his friend were at a party and drank whilst talking about girls like young men do. Manson tried to seduce a chick and he went off with the girl to see the stars or something like that. Whilst walking to the chosen spot, the two ran into Manson’s friend called Josh. Manson asked Josh where he would find him later on. Josh replied with: “Seek the truth for yourself, and I will meet you there!” Manson didn’t understand that these were the last words he heard from Josh ever again. Josh jumped off a cliff like all the other teenagers did during that party. He actually talked with Manson about this whilst they were drinking during that night. It wasn’t suicide, Josh was too drunk and his legs cramped up due to dehydration. Josh drowned that night and Manson got depressed. He later found out that Josh was a terrible swimmer. But why am I writing this down here? Because the death of Josh confronted Manson with the brutal reality that he could die at any given time. Another saying goes like that: Any man has two life’s, the second one starts when he realizes that he only has one. By accepting the fact that you will die someday and that you only have a certain number of fucks to give, you liberate yourself from irrational fears. As Manson wrote: “Yet in a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all life’s meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary, all metrics and values suddenly zero.” Do you really think that it matters what other people are thinking about something, when you all are going to die in the grand scheme of things? The only thing that you should immediately accept is your death, hence it’s unavoidable. Once you’ll understand that, you free yourself of all the bullshit IFs. The only way we as humans can surpass death is with letting behind meaningful stuff on this earth: a legacy. I have one question for you: Why do you care about death when you are afraid to live?
“All the meaning in our life is shaped by the innate desire to never truly die”
This quote from Becker shows the desire of mankind to leave something behind. I had a talk with Linus about the website and our plans with it. We wanted to create more meaningful impact with our work. We both had IFs. “What if it doesn’t work?” “What if the people will hate us?” We conclude that we will never know what will happen unless we act. Like I said before choose your limited number of fucks to give wisely. I don’t give a fuck about what people that I don’t even like will say to that. I give a fuck about the legacy I will leave after my death. I give a fuck about my own personal fulfilment. Linus probably does the same if not, feel free to comment down below.
You are not special and neither am I.
Yep, you heard it right. You are nothing special and that’s okay. Once I understood that, I liberated myself from my ego. I recommend the prior post in which Linus talks exactly about that. The problem with feeling like you are special can be seen in today’s society. The paradox is that thinking too positive about yourself will make you depressed. “I’m so unique, I deserve special treatment.” sentences like that used to get on my nerves, now I don’t give a fuck anymore. In today’s society, everyone can become extraordinary. If everyone becomes extraordinary, then nobody is extra ordinary. Yet people fail to realize the meaning of extra and ordinary.
“The ticket to emotional health, comes from eating your veggies that is accepting the bland and mundane truths of life: truths such as “Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things and “The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that’s okay? This vegetable course will taste bad at first. Very bad. You will avoid accepting it. But once ingested, your body will wake up feeling more potent and more alive”
If you constantly blame others for your own misery, you are jerking off your ego. Like I said in one post before, you are responsible for your own life. People who are victimizing themselves will never become happy. You have to accept your fears for what they are. Simple thoughts, or rational necessities?
This was a passionate topic for me and I hope you learned something valuable from it. If that’s the case, leave a comment down below. If not, comment down below.
Strength and Honour
