As we approach Halloween, we
put out eerie and ghostly things. We carve pumpkins and stash large
bowls of candy to be given out to beggars on trick or treat night. We
think back to those days as youngsters when we dressed up as bums,
witches, Draculas or even princesses to roam about the neighborhood to
beg for candy and goodies. Every once in a while when you knocked on the
door or rang the door bell, the tables would be turned and some home
owner would disguised himself as a scarecrow sitting on the porch and at
the last moment would move and scare the daylights out of you. There
were some like always that would go around pulling tricks and playing
pranks and doing mischief, but they were the minority and most of the
time did little more than leave soap on windows of houses and cars. As a
whole most Halloweens come and go without much scary things occurring.
The idea of real scare comes from fears that are
put in our minds from real life experiences. My wife and I share the
same greatest fear, that we would allow fear to dictate how we conduct
and live our life. Everyone has their own fears. Some effect us enough
to become phobias. When that happens we move into a whole new realm of
scared. Lots of people will tell you what they are scared of and a lot
of them won’t. Some are afraid of even mentioning those things that
drive them into their shells of self-defense. Many people must seek
professional help to help ease the burden of their fears. Some go mad
and must be put into some sort of re-hab center to try to overcome those
fears that dog them day after day. Some never recover and spend the rest
of their life institutionalized.
I believe that life is much to wonderful to let
fears and phobias interfere with it. First of all I can see with my age
and health condition that life has passed much to quickly. I look back
on those small fears that occupied my mind and found them to be a
complete waste of time. Most of the things that I was scared of and
worried about either didn’t happen or if they did, had little or no
impact of my life. It isn’t that I feel I got away with anything as much
as I had way overblown the importance of my fears.
Fear is always something that happens later.
When we watch a scary movie we are scared not by what is happening on
the screen at the moment, but of what is going to happen in the next
moment or the next scene. Once we have confronted the monster it is only
a matter of time before we discover his weakness and destroy him. It is
the same way in our life. Once we are able to confront our fears its
only a matter of time before we find its weakness and are able to
destroy it.
There are a lot of fears that we face every day.
We fear those who have been elected to run our country. What many of us
don’t realize is that we can face that fear and the way to face it is to
fire that guy who holds that office and hire someone else.
Many of us fear the people who are supposed to
give us the news is actually giving his or his news organization’s
opinion of the story. Not to fear. Turn the dial and don’t watch or give
up the newspaper. After a while they either change their way of giving
the news or go out of business. Either way the fear is gone.
We fear for our children and grandchildren for
the way the schools are being run. Not to fear. If enough people band
together and attend the school board meetings and PTA meetings and let
them know that they are being monitored, watched and are accountable,
they will change.
Of all the fears and phobias we have in this
world I think the worst and most persistent is apathy or the fear of
getting involved. The greater this is the more power you give to the
people who you elect or hire to do your work. If you ran a restaurant
you would not last long if you did not get involved with your help. You
would watch and train and lead those people to make your business a
success. So get involved and face your fears and find its weakness and
then destroy it.
The scariest things we should face this
Halloween are those made up little made up and masked faces that ring
our doorbell and shout, "trick or treat."
