Fear – 10 Minute Essay

Fear is the restrictor. The limiter of evolution and progress. Years ago fear dominated my confidence, fear of losing, losing money, losing friends, losing fights.

Overcoming fear demands loss, it demands to lose, it expects failure. No one can win every time whatever the conflict. Accept, loss even though the right is on our side – is necessary to becoming fearless.

The winner expects to win and cannot accept even second place. Everyone fails in the end, the athlete’s body broken, industrialist outgunned by progress, aged actor damned by youthful beauty.

Once a man said ‘you’re either with me or agin me’. His threat meant nothing, and I was young and worry-free: I did not care: he feared my mindset. Later, I cost him fortunes with letters. You’ll never know why or how the significance of the quotes broke his will. He struck the match, lit the fire and fell in the ashes. Bravado turns to fear in the hours without sleep, and dreams without solutions.

I knew a man who fell onto a bonfire. He was old and rich and foolish. Fifteen pounds for a gardener to cut the hedges, sweep the leaves and set the pile of cuttings alight. He feared poverty, feared losing money. Three five pound notes were as nought to him, save the money, prove the point, demonstrate greed. He died four days after the fall, a beautiful autumn morning. The listing of his will in the Gazette: an estate of one-million-seven-hundred thousand. Fifteen pounds for a gardener and a fear of wasting money.

When we have nothing, there can be no fear of loss. Without possession there is freedom and freedom is worth more than money. To be within freedom is to be within real wealth. To my mind, the greedy have nothing other than fear. Material gain or accumulation signifies following or understanding a process. What is interesting to me, is understanding how to make wealth. There is no secret to real wealth; I’ll write of the secret: It is age: to accumulate great wealth you need to be without fear: the young have less doubt and take more risks; accumulation is more natural.

The paradox is the young have no fear of losing: so their wealth is soon gone. A few are well trained and disciplined, they become the substantially rich. By the way, inherited wealth is of no consequence. To have real value – money has to be earned: savings has to represent an exchange of life hours, endeavour, work, even harder work, and toil. And then the savings account represents one’s expired life hours.

Be careful, heed the lesson Albert learned too late. Understand savings have less value than life. As his flesh scorched on that Saturday morning, he realised the truth. Too late, foolish old man. We could wager he’d have spent more than fifteen pounds to be free of the pain during those last days. What fears did he experience as he lay awaiting the blessing of the final sleep? Who knows, who cares?

A broken man just asked me for seven pounds. You would not give him a penny. As the money is handed over Wes says ‘I’ll repay you’ – The probability is; he will repay his debt. He has no food, mental and physical illness are his identity. I’m not taking a chance; I am making a choice, there is no fear of losing the money. Sixty years old, still taking risks, without worry of losing, without fear.

I am free.