The Root of All Fears

While eating a ham and salami sandwich the other day and after watching an episode of The Simpsons entitled “Fear of Flying”, I started thinking about my fears. I'm afraid of bugs flying in my ear, my brother punching me, getting pulled over by the Cops whilst I drive. After that I started thinking that all of those fears and really all fears have the same thing in common. They all deal with rejection. In The Simpsons episode, the Psychologist asks one of the characters what the earliest memory of something bad happening was. That character's earliest, worst memory was her first day of school and finding out that her father was a steward on an airplane. I asked myself that same question and my earliest memory of something bad happening was my first day of pre-school when my mom dropped me off and I was by myself for the first time in a strange new place. I remember I spent the entire day trying to use this old, fake toy phone at the school to call her to come get me. I was alone and afraid. I didn't like preschool, but I realized that it wasn't the place, the teacher, or the other kids. It was the fact that my mother rejected me from our happy days of reading kids books, playing with my old train toys, watching As The World Turns together, and eating grilled cheeses with green apples for lunch. Rejection was the source of my fear and apprehensiveness that I didn't understand.

Google defines fear as being worried or apprehensive about a possible situation or event. I used to believe it meant worried about survival, but now I think that it's entirely rooted to rejection. Rejection is defined as feeling unaccepted by any person, place, or thing. Some common examples of fear would be heights, spiders, or in my case bugs flying in my ears. Heights? People are afraid of heights because they fear the ground won't accept their fall. Spiders? They fear rejection from the spiders in the form of a bite or infection they might leave. In my case, I fear bugs flying in my ear because they are disrespecting my need for privacy.

Respect is important; feelings of not being respected will make a lot of people feel bad. We all have egos and respect is important to a healthy ego. In any philosophy discussion on morality you'll learn that the simplest way to define morality is to respect others. Taking a logical step into looking at how you should act or treat others is to always remember that respect is the most important thing. I challenge you to reject the Golden Rule and try to think of the Diamond Rule. Don't treat other people as you would like to be treated, treat them as they would like to be treated. This forces you to think about other people and try to empathize with them. This is how to learn to respect other people. Respect is the key to eliminating fear in the world. With respect you cannot reject and without reject you will not fear. Respecting others is easy. We all just need to stop looking at how we are different and start looking at how similar we really are. We're all human and we deserve our own preferences, opinions, religions, and choices and we can't do anything about what sex or color we were born as (no matter how hard we try).

My hope for anyone who reads this is you'll try to think about and understand your fears a little bit more. I hope you understand that rejection may be one of the main causes of fear, it is fear's root and seed combined. I hope this desensitizes your fears a little by shedding a little bit more light on that tree of darkness that we all have in our minds. Knowledge on any subject can always help you solve your problems and demystify something big in your mind into something small that you can squash .

Peace and Respect!