Survival of the Fearful

Everyone is afraid of something. Fear is our mind’s way of telling our body to stay away, that we are in some sort of dangerous situation and that we need to escape. We learn fear in order to survive. Take for example, that one time when you were a kid and your mother told you not to touch the hot stove. You didn’t believe her did you? No, we just have to try these things for ourselves, even if people tell us it’s going to hurt. Once we get burned, however, our body will instantly jerk our hand back, and we become afraid of touching it again. But what happens if it didn’t hurt THAT badly? Maybe we’ll try it again, just for the hell of it. And again. And again. Until that one time when you are so confident that your mom was wrong that you end up with a 3rd degree burn. You’re never going to want to touch the stove after that, whether it’s hot or not. So, though it may take a few tries for our brain to get the message, eventually we learn to be afraid of things. Fear can change our lives; sometimes it's healthy, and sometimes it’s not. But regardless, when something, or even someone, hurts us enough times, our mind tells us to run away, so that we don’t end up with another burn, scar, or broken heart. Fear helps us survive; and if you keep getting burned by that damn stove over and over again, it’s time to take your hand off it.