The biggest fear of all

29/11/2024 Nilson Lattari

How can we confront our fears? There are many kinds of fear: fear of the future, consequences, truths, and lies. These moments keep us alert and provoke anxiety as we try to solve personal problems and overcome obstacles in life. Life is a confrontation, and it’s an interrogation confronting us.
We face each level of fear and attempt to understand them in search of solutions. Our decisions often don’t depend on our will, as they are connected to events or influences which are out of our control.
If someone asks us who has influenced our lives, or who we admire, I’m sure the majority would name a professor as a good example of positive influence. Maybe this professional is the first person we contact when we leave home to experience the world. Professors teach us rules, responsibility, and knowledge about life. Other influential figures might include politicians friends or family members.
Professors, as well as relatives and friends, are examples of people who help us face our fears. These “teachings” might include physical laws, discipline, writing, reading, respect and values. Professors imagine that by teaching us these principles, their students will have a better future. Family counselling, school experiences, and general knowledge might be models for a more friendly future.
No, I’m not talking about these types of fears or another fear that turns us into heroes as we overcome them. Professors hint at obedience and laws connected with responsibilities. Laws, obedience, and responsibility often restrict our wishes and futures. Professors, relatives and authorities cannot help us face a particular kind of fear: the fear of desires – this fear is within us.
We are afraid to break away from the affections and feelings we have acquired through culture, family examples, influential figures, and religious characters. This fear challenges us to break our relationships with sacred symbols or traditions. This sacredness was inherited and placed in our subconscious, walking with us and speaking to us from within.
No one teaches us how to understand this fear, nor how to live without our beliefs in order to experience a true inner freedom. This new life is full of free thoughts and it is not connected with duties, obligations, or expectations to benefit ourselves or others. This fear breaks the social system, agendas, professional or emotional commitments, and ethics. We are bound by responsibilities to the community we live in and to people close to us or not.
This fear is not related to obligations, school tasks, silences, or any ideological bias. Understanding this fear is like a free-flowing wandering through our minds. This fear is not an experiment where a professor warns us to stop making the wrong movement.
This fear involves desires and moments of choices compelling us to move forward. In these moments, we are alone and our world waits for our decision as we debate between our desires and everything we have learnt. By the way, there is a well-known quote “Be careful what you wish for”.
The professor who appears in these moments is called maturity. On the table, we lay out our mistakes and regrets, telling them that it’s time to leave the classroom. It is time to take a deep breath and we have no more professors, chalkboards or rules to guide us. The voice of our conscious and the influence of others are silenced, and the universe is waiting for our commands. We decide to confront this fear, and we become our own professors.
We break our ties with behaviours, beliefs and truths and analyse the pros and cons. This special moment belongs only to us when we are facing our desires.