Recently I attended a graduation commencement for Eastern Washington University at the Spokane Arena. One of my dear family members presevered through all manner of adversity to get her Bachelor's degree, and I was super elated to be there to celebrate her special moment.
However, as we arrived at the arena, I noticed something. A feature of our existence that has been growing like a metastasizing tumor, especially over the last couple decades.
The spirit of fear rules our behavior.
Or at least it appears so.
As soon as we exited the car, people of authority began telling us what we had to do. Where to line up, what we could and couldn't do, if you had a purse it had to be see through, and heaven help you if you dared to possess a pocket knife. It felt as if we were livestock and we couldn't be trusted to make rational, voluntary decisions.
I don't need the State to tell me to how to conduct myself. I am a fully free individual, completely and willingly responsible for my choices, and it just bristled my guard hairs more than a touch to be surrounded by so many passive souls.
Souls who have ceded so much of their autonomy in the name of fear.
Being scared is a state that we all experience. It's 100% okay to be scared. It's horrible to be (and stay afraid).
I have spent far too much of my life afraid. Afraid that I will get in trouble. Afraid that I will cause harm. Afraid of what will happen if I act.
Fear was my master.
Here lately though, I have found myself murmuring Be not afraid every time I examine my state and acknowledge that I am letting fear rule my choices, my state of being.
For as Florence Nightingale once said when being faced with the But it's impossible brigade, "But it must be done."
The beautiful, wonderful people in my country have embraced a culture of fear. We let the State bleed away our freedom in the name of safety. We act as if we don't have the capacity to be together in groups without being told what to do by someone of authority. We have isolated ourselves into echo chamber tribal groups as a means to insulate us from scary people, and worst of all, at least to me, we are letting fear, being afraid, keep us from acting.
I have neglected my calling and purpose for far too long because I was afraid. No more will I languish under Fear's paralyzing chains.
You don't need permission to act. Do it anyway.
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's definitely not free iPhone, the header and footer images were made in Canva.
