“Nothing to Fear but fear itself...”

I was watching Michael Beckwith at the Agape International center deliver his weekly message online, and he was speaking of, well, what he is always speaking of, which is where we put our attention, our trust. This time he was speaking of how we misuse fear that does not serve us and only serves the perpetuation of fear.

At one point he paraphrased the common FDR quote, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” And that hit me hard, because basically it is saying that fear deserves our fear. Does that make any sense or really help us? While I know FDR delivered the statement with passion, since we use it so regularly I think it deserves a deeper look-see.

Appropriate fear is more primal than this quote suggests, often completely out of our control. Our bodies are instantly activated in primal fear, not planned and only partially manageable without deep practice. But this common quote is regarded in society a lot to encourage people not to live in fear. I get that the basic idea is that fear doesn’t serve us. But it is also an example of how we take in information and don’t really critically analyze and apply it to our own growth path. Hearing this quote, probably for the thousandth time in my life, triggered a more comprehensive dive into the fear we do choose to live with and how to live by something that more deeply trusts rather than victimizing ourselves with fear on a daily basis.