What Fear Can Teach Us

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Everyone has his own experience about fear, no matter he is a kid, a parent, a teacher, or even a king. People always see having fear is a weakness and it is something you could overcome. Some people worry too much about their own fear coming true and this often hinders them from making a sensible judgment and doing what they should do.

Karen Thompson Walker, a novelist, shared her unique perspective to view fear. She viewed fear as a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do. Instead of treating 'fear' as a scary stuff, she encouraged us to take a step back and treat it as a story. Just like all great stories, our fear focuses our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next? Hence, we should not only be the writer of our fear, we should also be the reader of it at the same time, and think about what will happen next and what you should do to prevent or ease the problem. By doing so, we may prepare for the worst and react to the fear more rationally.

When I was a child, I was often troubled by the nightmare of losing my milk teeth one by one while brushing my teeth. Now I could try to ease my worry by asking myself what I will do if that did happen and telling myself that my permanent teeth will grow soon.

Are you having some fears now? Try not to perceive it as a nightmare and be overwhelmed by it. By reading and studying your fear, you can predict a number of possible consequences and make an optimal decision. You will then realize that fear can teach you and help you grow ultimately.