And in the Red Corner, from Parts Unknown; Fear!

Yes, I must confess that I was raised on a steady diet of professional wrestling as a child.  The entire family would gather around the television set to witness the spectacle of two titans driving each other into the turnbuckles!  Even my Spanish grandmother, well into her late seventies, jumped into the delirium of flying dropkicks!

Even as a pre-teen, I was keenly aware that the majority of what I was watching was staged.  Still, I always managed to get drawn into the action; suspending belief for a couple of hours to cheer on my wrestling heroes.  In every telecast there was a match that featured a masked athlete.  He was always from “parts unknown” and was given a colorful name.  It never failed that he was also a villain!  Since he enjoyed pure anonymity, he was free to break all of the rules and invariably cheat his way to victory using a “foreign object” to subdue the good guy!

Perhaps the greatest villain that each of us must face on a daily basis is a masked warrior by the name of “Fear!”  He too carries an arsenal of unfair weapons; and he too will never let you know where he comes from!  I face this bad guy every morning when I sit down to produce this blog.  What if nobody reads this particular piece?  What if I draw a blank halfway through my story?  What if I just think I am an above average writer?

It is at those times that I have to remind myself that fear is a figment of my imagination.  I create it and I allow it into my life!  Yes, there are those thing that cause fear in every one of us!  Almost getting hit by a bus or having a snarling dog in your face will make any of us consider changing our underpants!  But this type of fear comes from our primitive “fight or flight” instincts.  It is ingrained within our genetic code!  I am talking about a specific kind of fear; that which comes from the unknown.

The majority of our waking hours, and indeed many of our sleeping hours as well, are consumed by the fear of the unknown.  We have no idea what horrible events may be awaiting us in any given day.  We worry about that which might be.  What if we do not measure up?  What if one of our loved ones shuns us?  What if my comfort zone or my daily way of life is suddenly disrupted?  These are all thoughts that we allow to form and we empower them by dwelling on the possibilities!

What if today is the best day of my life?  What if I get an unexpected financial windfall this morning?  What if my children call me today just to remind me that they love me?  As long as we are able to create and nurture fear within ourselves; we should be fully capable of inviting hope into our lives as well.  We human beings are very capable of conditioning ourselves internally.  I propose that we can train ourselves to replace our thoughts of fear with thoughts of hope.  It is not a simple proposition; but with determination, it can be accomplished.  Replacing fear with hope in your mind will draw positive results into your life!  It may also cure the nagging tiredness you feel and make those around you happier.

What about our old friend fear then?  I would suggest that you piledrive him into the canvas.  Once he is stunned, it should not be difficult for you to apply a figure-four leg lock on him and drive him into submission!