How To Outsmart Fear & Control Your Emotions

Life is full of uncertainty.

In many ways, we are both the driver and the passenger of our lives.

With strong self-discipline, we can make decisions that allow us to predict and control certain things on the surface of our life.

Things like what we do for work, where we live, whom we associate with, and how we choose to live our daily life.

But even with strong intellect, reason, and self-discipline, there is still a whole realm of life that we cannot be sure about.

Possibilities that we can only speculate, but can never fully control.

Like the chance of falling out of love or having a friend betray us.

The chance of early death, tragedy, or health conflicts.

Or the chance that things we hold to be true end up not being so.

All of which is possible.

And all of which, in general, is out of our control.

This creates deep conflict because as humans, control is one of our greatest hungers.

With control comes certainty, and with certainty, we would no longer have the fear of things going wrong for us or our loved ones.

But life does not work this way.

More often, life functions on its own terms within the laws of its own arbitrariness.

So what do we do?

How can we live knowing that behind any corner could be something that might ruin us?

How can we live with this irrevocable fear?

We cannot eliminate uncertainty, but we CAN rationalize the fear that stems from it.

In life, one of the only things we have true heightened control over is our thoughts and perspectives.

And we must use what we CAN control to override our fear of what we cannot.

If we wish to overcome fear, we must spotlight our consciousness and rationality onto it.

We can do this by constantly reminding ourselves of this; if we live in fear of what may or may not happen, we will spend our life detached from reality, suffering from things that do not even exist.

We will be our own worst enemy, self-inflicting anxiety with no purpose and taking our self away from enjoying the present moment, which would otherwise be precious and untainted.

For example, if we fear that we might become badly ill or injured from an unforeseen occurrence, fear will not decrease the chances of becoming ill or injured, but what it WILL do is create unnecessary suffering.

And if we do, by some unfortunate circumstances become ill or injured, we would have wasted the portion of our life when we were healthy, living with the mental consequences of being unhealthy.

And therefore, fearing uncontrollable concepts of the future simply does not make any rational sense.

It only brings unnecessary anxiety about that which does not exist, and takes us away from enjoying that which does.

Uncertainty is not something to be afraid of.

It cuts both ways.

If it is possible that unforeseen negative things can happen in life, then it is also possible that unforeseen positive things can happen to us in life.

And it is this concept of randomness and unpredictability that keeps life exciting.

The only thing we can do in life is to try our best to enjoy our time in spite of fear, so if our fears do come true, at least we enjoyed ourselves before the storm.