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Good Fears, Bad Fears
How some can be motivating, and some can paralyze us
There’s More To Fear Than Fear Itself
If we don’t move, keep ourselves safe, find food and shelter, we die. This is true if we’re an “advanced” human or a “primitive” worm. The instinct that drives us can be positive, in the form of endorphins or dopamine, or it can be more basic, information passing through our amygdala, the seat of fear, anxiety and aggression.
It’s easy to see fear as a net negative in the human animal, something we must suppress and eliminate; drown it with drugs and therapy. But I think we do ourselves a disservice by not praising our good fears, and not differentiating them from our bad or useless fears.
Good Fears
Let’s start with the good. The most obvious is what I lead into the article with: fears that keep you alive.
When you go off towards the edge of a cliff, or plunge your head into the ocean, the part of your brain yelling at you “this will definitely kill you if you’re not careful” is the primary thing that keeps you alive. The survival aspect of fear is its greatest gift to us. Those who are unafraid adrenaline junkies only have to ignore fear one time that doesn’t go well.
