Unfortunately, as human beings, we are highly susceptible to fear. Fear plagues us. It probably goes back to our ancestors. Sometimes, being a coward probably helped them to avoid getting eaten, to survive, and to reproduce. I for one, am glad my ancestors weren’t eaten by tigers before reproducing, but I’m not a fan of the fear they passed down to us.

It might be hard to believe, but I too know the grip of terror. When I was a lad, just out of elementary school, my little brother suffered an awful medical episode. It left him comatose for over a year, and then he died. He was just a normal little boy one day, and the next day we would never get to speak again.

It did a number on me. I was suddenly keenly aware of my own mortality, at a time when most kids were more concerned with Super Nintendo games and basketball. To make matters worse, I had an extremely active imagination. My mind had no trouble imagining all the various scenarios that could kill me. I would end up abandoning classes so I could talk to the school counselor about nuclear wars, bursting cranial blood vessels, kidnappers, diseases, and all sorts of other perils.

It continued on and off through college, until I was finally sick of it. I resolved that I was done being afraid. Every day, I remind myself that I shall not fear. Every day, I remind myself that their are far more powerful things in my life than fear. And you know what? It’s worked. I live a much, much fuller life now.

So, it’s with no shortage of empathy that I see numerous people struggling with fear. And I have no shortage of contempt for the politicians, corporations, activists, and con-artists that use fear as a means of manipulating people. It’s a flat-out awful way to treat people. When I say “slave” in the title, I mean it. The chains of fear may not be visible, but they are no less real.

Don’t believe me? Think maybe I’m exaggerating a tad bit? Perhaps, but consider these examples:

• We vote for politicians who insist that awful things will happen if they lose.
• We buy all sorts of products that claim to make us safer.
• We avoid interacting with people who we’ve been convinced are dangerous and to be feared.
• Particularly in times of crisis, we often refuse to even consider dissenting views in the face of a perceived threat.
• We come back again and again to social media, perhaps out of Fear of Missing Out, often simply to doomscroll and reinforce our fears.
• We sometimes even ignore God and what we know is right, instead committing cruel acts THEY tell us will bring us safety.

All of those examples include fearful behavior and some party profiting off of that fear, whether in money or in power.

I don’t know about you, but I HATE articles online that complain about social problems and provide absolutely no solutions. They basically just tell people they’re both doomed and helpless. Yeah, thanks jackasses. I’m pleased to tell you that this is not one of those articles. This is a HEROIC blog, and there’s nothing heroic about learned helplessness.

You have the power to fight back against fear. There are real, concrete steps you can take to break fear’s chains and liberate yourself. These aren’t the only ones, but I’m going to break out some primary ones here.

1. Seek an appointment with a psychological professional. Your fear may be indicative of an underlying medical condition, such as clinical anxiety. Even if you think you can’t afford it, there are some clinics that offer low-cost or even free care for patients in need.
2. Ignore that “ignorance is bliss” hog-piss and learn about what you fear. So many fears are of overblown nonsense. If you let the ignorance fester, your imagination will fill in the blanks with things far worse than reality.
   • Seriously. It’s amazingly sad how many people can simultaneously live in relative safety and be convinced they’re in terrible danger. Hard data and facts are your friends.
3. In a similar spirit, expose your self to what you fear. For example, if a given ethnicity makes you anxious, try going to a restaurant catering to it. Maybe you’ll discover these people are just like you.
4. When possible, work to resolve or mitigate the cause of the fear. For example, if you fear losing your job, you could at least polish up your resume as a backup plan.
5. Turn off the God-damned network news. Stop going to political blogs (propaganda troughs). If the feeds in social media insist on abusing you with fear-based garbage, leave it. All three of these forces leverage your fear for money and power.
6. Put your faith in God, that at the end of the day, His Will shall be done.

We can’t allow ourselves to be enslaved by fear. We weren’t born to be afraid. We were born to be courageous and heroic. If you need inspiration, look back at some of the challenging times in history. In every corner of the earth, in every age, there have been people moved by that heroic spirit who didn’t succumb to fear. Let’s try and be like them!