Life has always been a rollercoaster; it goes up, and many times it promptly goes down and around, scaring and surprising us.
Despite not being in a theme park for a while now, the past year and the pandemic remain to be life’s unexpected twist and scary dip in our rollercoaster ride of life. We inevitably fear what lies ahead and after all the surprises, anxiety, and heartbreak we have been through, what we feel is valid. Fear is a scary and overpowering feeling that renders us helpless, but this is only the case if we let it. So why should fear be feared? Who gave it the authority over our hearts? Why is it the most underrated yet the most felt?
Fear is often defined as an impulse; it is a powerful feeling that overcomes us when we are afraid or faced with unknown and imminent danger. For example, we feel it when we are scared of seeing our test results for the first time, whether the test is school, work, or health-related. Other times, we feel it while opening the television to view the issues of the day or when we see the condition of our country worsening each day. The emotion comes in many forms and would often catch us off-guard, but regardless of how or when we feel it, fear of anything has one thing in common – it demands to be felt, and rightfully so.
Our hearts are naturally fragile, it quickly gets frightened, but it remains the strongest and the easiest fooled, and that is alright. Of course, we will want to run or cower in fear, and doing so is also valid but remember, if our hearts can learn to cope with it, so can we. So no, we should not give power over our fear, nor should we be agitated or worried; instead, we must learn to welcome it, for even the most courageous person recognizes it and revels in it. “For courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” No one gives it the authority to affect us other than ourselves, for whether we like it or not, fear has long been a part of us, it is and will be one of our core emotions, and we will feel it in many unforeseeable ways possible in the journey ahead as we live the rest of our lives.
Fear is a beautiful emotion; it lacks the praise it needs because we are too busy being afraid of it. We do not realize that we often blame such emotion when in truth, we only find the courage to do what we are meant to, with its help. Yes, we will experience it one too many times as we remain at home quarantined, unable to see many of our friends and loved ones, and not be in the same room with them, yet we will survive it. In our lifetime, there will be many things that will cause our heart and faith to falter but let us never forget that fearing for the well-being of ourselves and others means that we are human and are capable of love. And is not love the most powerful thing in the world? (ANDREA PAULINE L. HIRANG)
April 26, 2024
