The Fear

“The Fear” by Lily Allen is one of my favorite songs of all time.  I’m not sure why, but I love it.  One thing that I love about it is that when I think of “fear”, the line “I want lots of clothes and f*** loads of diamonds” travels though my head and I kind of forget what I was afraid of.  It sounds weird but it has been sort of a coping mechanism for me. 

I have been noticing lately that the actions and decisions that I and the people around me are %90 based on fear.  Seems extreme doesn't it?  We’ll let’s dissect a decision you have made in the last week.  Not like the decision on what you had for lunch yesterday, but a big decision.  For example, did you tell your friend or your mom exactly what you were thinking (good or bad) or did you keep it to yourself out of fear of how they would react?  Did you speak up when you saw something you felt was wrong or helped someone out or did you keep your mouth shut because you were too scared to get involved.  Let’s take it one step further…I looked at my entire life, all the choices that I have made to get me to the point that I am at today.  (Now before I go further, I have to be very clear that I love my life, my husband and my children and would not trade them for the world), BUT the choices that I made to get to this point were all based on some sort of fear.  Fear of ending up like my parents, I've been afraid of letting someone down, or making the “wrong” choice, or hurting someone’s feelings, or being successful.  Yes being successful, that wasn't a typo.  There are situations and even people who hinder their own success because they are afraid of what will happen when they achieve their goals. How their friends will respond to them, can they handle it and so on.  Or what happens if they lose their success.  All of these fears are ridiculous and crippling.  It makes me ill to think of all of the great things that I could have accomplished if I had not made choices based on fear,  If I had taken the road less traveled, or if I hadn't listened to my dad when he told me it would be too hard for me. 

So I am not going to make any more decisions based on fear.  I will do what I need to do, and walk through fire if I have to, to get what I want and what is best for my family.  I refuse to continue to conform to the ideals of society because it makes me feel comfortable.  What is the American dream anyways and why am I chasing that?  I will think outside the box, better yet, I will remove the box from the equation all together because why do we need the box in the first place.  And most importantly, I will stop listening to the well intentioned advice of people who are speaking and trying to influence me based on their own fears. I will not adopt someone else’s fear.