The heart of all the anxiety I have been talking about these past few posts ultimately come down to this concept. The concept of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the painful, and fear of the possibilities and implications of what our lives mean. I am all too familiar with fear, that rush of blood to my heart, the feeling of adrenaline, the deer in headlights look when you\’re so afraid you simply can\’t act. Now fear is a helpful thing. If we were not afraid of things that were dangerous to us we might end up getting eaten by a bear or something. Being fearful is an adaptation for survival. So why should I ask God to replace my fear when I know I need it? I think this is because all too often our fears are unfounded and become excessive, at least for me. Right now, I\’m actually home sick. I\’ve devoted the entire day to rest and recovery (besides, no one wants me to go to class if I\’m contagious, right?) I hate being sick, it brings up all sorts of irrational and erratic behavior in me that I simply wish I didn\’t have. This is based on my fear of being alone or being sick. This is where fear should be replaced, when it becomes an obstacle in our daily lives. I cannot tell you the amount of things I simply would not do because I was afraid. I\’m sure it\’s thousands. I tend to much prefer my safe space.
Here\’s a bit of a side note that I actually think does have to do with some kind of fear. It seems trivial, but I believe it represents a bigger issue involved in my life. I have recently realized that I need to delete music from my computer. I apparently don\’t have enough memory for my almost 40 gb of music. At first, this shocked and appauled me. What is a girl to do when she doesn\’t have 10,000 songs on her iTunes? How deprived! Now I know it sounds stupid (10,000 songs is on the excessive side), but truth be told the thought of having to give up music did not sit well with me. I think it taps into my fear of feeling deprived. I do not want to feel deprived. There are a couple of things about this I find really interesting: First, I\’m not even a super music focused person. I mean, I like music as much of the next guy, but I\’m not about having my life revolve around it like some people do. I\’m not even a huge concert goer. Second, I don\’t even listen to half the songs I own simply because I don\’t know them and I would rather listen to songs I knew I liked. I only occasionally listen to new music and it probably won\’t be Metallica. Third, one of the thoughts that has been flying around my head has been having everything I own and do be a reflection of who I am and what I want to portray. Using that theory, I should only keep and want the music I feel somewhat connected to. The Fourth and final reason that it\’s ridiculous is that music is SO vastly, widely available that even if I got rid of something that I could someday want, I could probably get it back relatively easily. Now I feel like my distaste stems from my fears: what if I want to listen to that song someday, for example. It\’s a perfect example of the wind tunnel of media we are standing in. If I hoard music I\’m not even interested in, how can I remain grounded in who I am and what I am about. Anyways, random musings on the frustrations of the times. So I\’ve been painfully deleting whole albums by Aerosmith, Blink 182, 311, Bob Marley with the hopes that eventually I\’ll have enough room to add Owl City and Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.
\”Be not afraid. I go before you always. Come follow Me and I will give you rest.\” – Bob Dufford, Be Not Afraid