Feeding Into Foolish Fears

In response to the election's results, one of my Facebook friends wrote the following on her status: "Well, it's time again to sit down with...my son, and tell him that this nation doesn't care about him and that they don't think his life matters." She's black, by the way.

My sister told me that a child asked his grandmother if blacks were going to be slaves again now that Trump is in office.

One thing that upsets me is that parents wish to load their fears onto their children who never had any reason to be scared in the first place.

After the day of the presidential elections, my kids woke up happy. Why? Because they had no reason not to be happy. We never told them to be afraid of our government. We never talked badly about either of the candidates, and I never told them whom I voted for. My wife told my kids that they should just pray for whoever that takes office.

See, we don't spread fear to our children. Even when they see something that could scare them, I would ask them, "Does Daddy look scared?" They would say "No" and I would tell them, "Then there's no reason to be scared."

Have you ever been scared of something, but you just don't know why? You can't seem to make sense of your fears. That's because your fears were passed down. Or in other words, you INHERITED your fears. You never asked for the fears -- they were just given to you.

Many of our fears, I dare say, have been passed down. We never saw any reason to fear to begin with, but because other people insisted that we get scared, then we start getting scared.

Now, passing down fears can be a good thing. If you don't watch both ways before crossing the street, you'd get run down by cars. But see, you could make sense of that fear, especially since you hear about people getting hit by cars. Other kinds of fears don't make sense, but since you've been exposed to those having such fears for so long, it's hard to shake those fears off.

I think about kids when it comes to fears. While young, they seem to take more risks than adults. Why? Because they haven't learned what to fear. When they climb up trees, we tell them there's danger of falling off. We tell them to wash their hands before eating or else they could get sick. And sometimes, we tell them to not hang around certain people because of the fears that were passed down to us.

Be careful about whom you hang out with. People tend to pass down foolish fears to those who never asked for it.

Do you know people who are always scared about something? Why is that? No child is born scared of everything. Eventually, we all become victims of other people's fears -- and those fears could keep us from going forward.

Doctors tell us what to fear. Media tells us what to fear. Our bosses, friends, co-workers, all of these tell us what we need to be scared of. It's time to start asking yourself, "Do I really need to be scared of this?"

Fear is healthy when it's there to protect you. Fear becomes a lord when it guides your entire life. Or in other words, fear is a wonderful servant, but a horrible master. Fear is our aide, not our teacher. Fear gives us a hand. It's not there to take care of our every need.

It's time to just stop being scared. Being scared all the time is a HARD way to live life. Imagine being one of those folks who walk around paranoid of things that may never happen. Do you wish to live like that for the rest of your life? No? Then start evaluating what scares you and ask yourself how much sense does it make to be scared of it.

Take your life back by tossing foolish fears. Start making bolder choices so that you finally move forward in life.