"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." ~ Nelson Mandela

We go through life fearing different things. We fear change, the unknown, committment, responsibility, being out of our comfort zone, failure, unacceptance, spiders. We are even afraid to face those fears. We find different ways to avoid them and not deal with those fears. Sometimes I wonder what causes those fears in the first place? Okay I know the fear of spiders, they're just creepy. But the other things are major important things, and to fear those is major in my opinion.

A lot of the intrisic fears we have are of things that we have no control over, so then would the real fear be the fear of not being in control? Of feeling helpless? We have fantistical dreams of being able to over come all of our fears and conquer everything that the world has to throw at us, but when it comes to it, we chicken out. Sometimes we do get brave and face our fears and conquer them, other times we cower with our tails between our legs. What is it about our internal fears that incapacitate us so much?

How can we face and triumph our fears if we don't know where the originate from in the first place? Where do we even begin to find the ability within to overcome these fears of something intangible? How do you face something you cannot see but only feel?

"When you've suffered a great deal in life each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling"-- Yann Martel, "Life Of Pie"

Throughout this journey called life, we will always have a time when we will suffer.  When we will endure pain in one form or another.  A lot of the time it seems like once we have been  burned, each time after that seems to be worse than the first.  It always feels like the world is crashing in on us, but then we overcome it and become stronger.  But then we have something else happens and we need to suffer again and it feels like we cannot handle it.  Why is it that everything always seems worse than it is?  Always seems like something we cannot handle.

Life is full of struggles and trials that we seem to cannot be able to get away from. We are surrounded by it no matter the form it comes in. Each time we are forced to deal with such struggles it always seems worse than it is and worse than the last, even if it is something we have dealt with in the past.
We tend to hold onto our struggles, which is why I think it is so hard for us to deal with it when a new one arises. We hold onto the past so much that we even hold on the things we have struggled through. Sure sometimes it effects us in a positive way but other times it effects us negatively. How many of us find it hard to trust new people because someone in our past hurt us? How many of us find it hard to deal with the death of a loved on because we have had so many people in our lives die?

It is something we do all the time. Doing this makes it harder for us to deal with it when something arises because we think of all the pain we dealt with the first or second time around. We cannot let go of our pain, regardless of whether or not we overcame it once before. It continues to forever haunt us. Why? Why do we allow that?

"If there is no struggle there is no progress" Frederick Douglass

Is it possible for us to see the good within the bad? Can we see that when we struggle, there is something better at the end? I don't think we do. We focus so much on the negative that we do not see what in order to progress forwards sometimes we need to really struggle. We want to be able to progress throughout life smoothly without any troubles, but that is not always the case and when it's not we crumble. Are we honestly that fragile?

We spend so much time afraid of having to face hardship that I wonder if the fear of the hardship is worse than the hardship itself. But regardless we have to go through them to progress from one stage in life to another.

”Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”  - Dalai Lama

We spend so much of our lives in the pursuit of happiness.  We read book after book, go to seminars, mediate everything we can think of to find that thing called happiness.  We think there is some special formula to find happiness.  Someone out there who will bring us our happiness.  We say it all the time with a new relationship "He makes me so happy."  But what happens when the euphoria of a new relationship or a new job or whatever wears off?  The high of happiness dissipates and we are left wondering why we are no longer happy.  We are looking for happiness in all the wrong places.  It is not something we can find, not something we can buy or be given.  It cannot be found in the things and people around  us....it can only be found within ourselves.

Its like what the Dalai Lama says, happiness comes from our own actions.  We dictate our own happiness even if we don't realize that we have that ability.   We don't realize the power to find happiness lies within ourselves.  Why not?  Does it seem to hard for us to think that we grant ourselves happiness?  We are the ones who allow ourselves to remain suffering as I talked about in my last post.  We keep ourselves in this bubble of pain and suffering afraid of the unknown that we don't realize if we let go, we could find the happiness we so desperately want.  We tend to think external forces can break our force field and bring us happiness.   But until we let go of the suffering, let go of the pain and hurt, we can never find the happiness we are longing for. How can we break out of that cycle of perpetual suffering and find the happiness we desire?  How can we truly, honestly be happy if we remain bitter and jaded?

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering.  Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."  Thich Nhat Hanh

As much as we like to pretend that it doesn't our pasts play too much of a strong role in our present lives.  We say we don't live in the past, but our pasts are prevalent in everything we do and how we act and react to different situations and people. Despite the pain and suffering we've endured in the past, it is too hard to let go; to hard to let someone else in and live in the presence of the unknown.  Rather than let go of the painful past and face the unknown, we remain in that suffering.  Many of us have the same suffering and pain..could it be because subconsciously we look for it; we anticipate it and even sometime create it because that is what we know.  Is it possible to break out of that vicious cycle?

We may say the past is the past and that it doesn't affect our lives anymore but that's all it does.  How many of us have become bitter?  Afraid to get attached to anyone? Unable to trust?  We allow past hurts and sufferings dictate our lives whether we realize it or not.  And why o we allow it?  Deep down we find comfort in the pain.  I said so myself the other night..."I am used always being heart-broken."  How many things could we be missing out on because of that fear of the unknown, we say it is fear of being hurt again.  We keep ourselves in this perpetual cycle of hurt and suffering, but why?  Why can't we get past those hurts from past relationships, past experiences?  Is it honestly because we are that afraid of the unknown?

We end up building walls against those around us, and don't let anyone else inside those walls.  We say it is because we are afraid to get attached, but could it be more because we are more comfortable with our suffering and we don't want others to know that?  We don't want to let go of the suffering because...could it make us feel like there is still a connection to that person that caused us pain in the first place? That suffering allows us to still be close and feel like if we let go of that suffering and pain, then we let go of that person.  We are afraid to think of life without that person no matter how badly they hurt us.  Afraid of the life unknown without them, even if we are already living life without said person.  So, is it really the suffering we have a hard time letting go of?  Or is it more of the person?  While holding onto the causes us suffering, and makes it harder for us to allow someone else in and care for us, could it be not for fear that they will hurt us, but for fear of loving someone again and letting down those guards?  And therefore letting go of someone we still love?