Why Fear Cannot Rule Your Life

Why Fear Cannot Rule Your Life

By Joseph Lalonde We are inundated with stories that are meant to create fear in our lives.
From the nightly news telling us stories of all the evil happenings to the water cooler gossip about who did what, we know this earth can be a scary place.
A few months ago, my wife and I went to Frosty Oasis, a local ice cream parlor in Muskegon. Normally we will walk to get ice cream, but this night we decided to drive over.
While in line, we saw multiple police cars fly down the road and turn just past where we were standing.
Come to find out, there was a shooting across the street. A young man had been shot.

Fear Creeps In

Reading online, I saw many people were now scared to let their children go to the skate park where the shooting occurred. These parents feared their children may be the next victim of a shooting.
Fear crept into the lives of those who lived in the neighborhood. Fear crept into the lives of those who used the park.
It’s normal for us to become fearful after a dangerous situation occurs. It’s a protection mechanism that is used to keep us safe.
So, it’s OK to let fear creep in.
It’s not OK to let fear rule your life.

Fight the Fear

As I read the comments of people being scared that their child may be shot or their home may be hit by gunfire, my mind began to process what was going on.
People are reacting to the incident with irrational fear. They cannot see past the current situation to see how safe everything had been at one point.
When I began to think through what had happened, I saw that this was an abnormal act.
The skate park had been there for over 15 years. There had been little trouble at the park. And now people were scared to let their families go there.
If you break down the statistics, you would see your chances of being harmed at the park is almost nil. Less than .01 perccent.
This is how you fight the fear. You figure out the probabilities of something bad happening and you bring that fact to light.
What are you fearing in your organization? Is it:
Bankruptcy?
Firing a bad employee?
Finding volunteers?
Getting customers?
Use the process I did to access the safety of the park. Go through and see how many times you’ve had to file bankruptcy (my guess is the number is less than two). See how many times firing an employee went bad (the truth is that it’s probably best for your organization and for the employee being let go).
When you look at things from a higher level, you begin to see fear isn’t the correct response. Confidence and assurance are more likely the correct attitude to have.
So, kick fear to the curb. Stop letting it rule your life.
There’s less to be afraid of than you think.