Thursday, June 9, 2011

This Week's Column:

Giving up the fear
Everyone is afraid of something. But sometimes what we fear is a bit silly. Anyone agree?
For example, one of my biggest fears is waking up in the middle of a surgery. In reality, what is the likelihood that will actually happen, especially when I’ve only had one surgery during my entire life?
Marionettes also freak me out. They’re just creepy.
Some people are afraid of sharks, which is especially silly if they don’t live by an ocean. Sharks in the ocean, OK, real fear. Sharks inland, not so much.
Some people are afraid of certain numbers. And clowns, who isn’t afraid of clowns?
People like TV’s Monk are afraid of germs.
How many of us are afraid of spiders? When you look at how small the arachnids are related to the size of a human and our ability to smash them, that fear is a bit crazy, too.
Crazy fears like this can often consume people's lives.
But recently I read about real fear. It was a situation I cannot imagine someone living through and I shivered thinking about it.
I was reading Jaycee Dugard’s statement from the trial against her captors. How this young women, kidnapped at age 11, survived 18 years of this torment still impresses me.
She was held captive in a dirty tent in the back yard where she was psychologically manipulated and repeatedly rapped by her captor, Phillip Garrido, eventually leading to a very young Dugard having two children by this man. She had the first child when she was only 14.
How could an 11-year-old even begin to process what was happening to her, or could she?
Equally scary were the times this situation was overlooked by authorities who could have gotten her out of this mess sooner.
To me this is real fear, something extremely horrible. How many times do we — and I include myself in this — overreact to silly fears and frustrations when real horrors are going on in the world, sometimes right under our noses.
She was an 11-year-old girl who for years was paralyzed to change her outcome, surviving horrors none of us want to face. This is a situation much more frightening than a spider, clowns or sharks.
It just serves as a reality check or a check of our reality, whichever is more fitting.
How silly is it of me to be afraid of marionettes when there are people being abused, when children are starving and when nations live in fear of their oppressive governments?
Fear and worry of the little things are often what distract us from hurts and pains that people experience all around us. When we can’t get passed our fear of the irrational, how can we deal with the reality of a friend who’s battling cancer, a child being abused or a family mourning the loss of a soldier?
It reminds me to stop focusing on my selfish irrational fears in life and think about real things people are going trough and the real fears they face. At least I hope I will remember that.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/content/giving-fear

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