Fear is a word that makes people hide in corner, not wanting their lives to continue because something may or may not happen.

What if you woke up and were not afraid; you were able to stand and overcome whatever comes your way. What if you were fearless?

Through my seventeen years of life I have spent approximately eight years of them without fear. To most, my definition of fear is different. To most, fear means something that scares them, but to me fear means something that I cannot overcome.

Over these past eight years, I have not jumped at a horror movie or screamed when I was caught off-guard. The only reason that I can see why I am fearless is because as a kid, I lived in nonstop fear. When I was younger I lived in a trailer, and my parents were gone almost all the time. As a kid, I feared for my life as my brother and I sat in our two-bedroom trailer, waiting for my mom to get home from the bars.

Then once I turned around ten, I realized something: I have nothing to fear. Through my life and all my fear, I finally reached the state where fear has only become a word.

Yes, there have been times when I saw something and chills have run down my spine, but it is usually caused by disgust. There have also been times when I was scared for a loved one, but I have never truly encountered something I could not overcome.

I know a lot of people with phobias, such as a friend who can’t stand to be surrounded in darkness and cowers at the thought of death. Unlike this person, I have been able to see something so corrosive as death and know not to fear it because I know it will come whether I want it or not. In other words, I cannot control it, and therefore, I am at peace with its inevitability.

In my mind nothing should be feared, it should be overcome, because fear is all in the mind.



Brian Weidman is a staff writer for the Cougar Clause. He’s a junior and this is his first semester on staff.