Thirty-Nine

Phobias are defined in psychology as an unreasonable fear of something. It’s not like being terrified of bees because you’re allergic and don’t carry an Epi-Pen with you everywhere (hint: You actually can’t).

No, it’s something where your level of fear goes well beyond the norm, and not necessarily because of what you’re afraid of, but of just how afraid you are of a thing.

Being afraid of going outside (agoraphobia) can make sense in some contexts, but not to the point where you absolutely refuse to leave the house, for example.

Well, for a while, my big phobia was turning 39-years-old, and there’s a reason why.

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When Fear Becomes The Master

I was talking with some friends earlier today about someone I know, a woman who has a lot of talent and capability, but is governed by a great deal of fear.

Because of that fear, she has continually held herself back from things she wanted to do.

That’s not to say she doesn’t have successes. She does. Yet they’ve usually come about because she was thrust into circumstances rather than her jumping in willingly.

Every time that’s happened, she has risen to the occasion and proven she can do far more than she believed she could do. Afterward, she would reflect on that fact and acknowledge she was wrong…

…only to allow fear to be her master once again.

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A World Gone Crazy

The world has clearly lost its mind.

As I’m sure you’re aware, we had a jackass sending bombs to people he disagreed with politically. Then yesterday, we had a jackass talk into a synagogue and start shooting people simply because they were Jewish.

This comes after months and months of low-level violence in the form of riots and assaults against people because they supported a certain politician and just a year and a half or so ago when a man tried to exterminate members of Congress for being part of the wrong party.

We are living in interesting times, in the Chinese curse sense.

And honestly, no one is ready for this. None of us are. You don’t get “ready” for stuff like this. Not completely.

What we’re looking at is little more than the start of an internal civil war. If something doesn’t give, we’re going to watch our nation torn apart, so it’s time to dig in and get as ready for this kind of thing as possible.

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