Anthrax : What It Is, What We Can Do
Fri
12
OCT
2001
The Mind Game of Fear
We’ve been officially warned by the F.B.I. and our President that we could be attacked during the next few days and to be watchful. Yet we are also told that we need to carry on and live our lives. Part of the terrorists' plan is to scare us to the point of immobilizing us, destroying our way of life, our economy, and more. While it’s only natural to get frightened when planes fly into our buildings and kill thousands of people and now seeing Anthrax pop up, our fear can’t stand in the way of us carrying on. How? We’ll figure it out.
I see fear as a mind game. For me, standing behind a stage door those last moments before I walk out on to the stage to give a concert is quite a mind game of dealing with fear. I truly have the choice to run out the back door and disappear, never to play in public again, or I can embrace my fear of failure or tripping flat on my face. I can choose to not allow the fear to stand in my way so that instead I nod to the stage hand to open the stage door so that I walk out onto the stage, address the audience, and then sit down at the piano and give the concert.
It’s that easy and also that difficult. The biggest game is in my own mind.
I use that analogy with myself often as I think about dealing with fear in other situations. Right now we’re faced with being at war and having enemies among us plotting to do us harm in ways that we may or may not even be able to imagine (last month showed us that). I’ve lost sleep, I haven’t eaten as well and I’ve been grieving over the tremendous loss of September 11. Am I afraid? I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t. Fear isn’t a sign of weakness or a negative emotion at all, though. It can be a minor annoyance or a major sign to us, and it’s up to us how we deal with fear that brings negative or positive results.
Especially with our friends and loved ones for support, we’ll learn how to work our way through this time. Most of us have never had to live with the kind of fear that we’re faced with right now. I think we can learn a lot from those who’ve experienced this where terrorism is or was unfortunately a part of daily lives.
Dealing with the fear in our minds is a critical part of getting through the present, now that our lives drastically changed last month.
07:23 pm, pdt
12 October, 2001 Comments, Trackbacks ·
Categories: Politics, Sept 11 Attacks
