Fear or Love, Baby.

How do we decide to lead our lives?

Hello everyone,

I hope 2023 is treating you well

! A month has gone by already! Already this year for me is filled with excitement and a lot of new experiences. As we enter the month of love, how are you leading this year, with fear or love?

I heard this phrase for the first time in one of my favourite movies of all time, Tick Tick Boom. If you haven’t watched it already you should, it is available on Netflix. When Jonathan Larson was panicking about his upcoming workshop, Michael calmed him down by asking him, "Are you letting yourself be led by fear or by love”, I found it very profound and haven’t stopped thinking about it ever since then. These two emotions feel perfectly antonymous to each other. Well, most psychologists seem to believe too.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist best known for her model of the five stages of grief in terminally-ill patients, said

“Deep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions: love and fear”

Fear is an emotion that is caused by a perceived threat. It is a survival mechanism that is hardwired into our brains. Fear can be positive if it motivates us to take action and protect ourselves. However, fear can also be a negative emotion if it paralyzes us and prevents us from taking action. In the movie, Jon Larson’s fear of failing to succeed before turning 30 was starting to overshadow his love for writing. He was worried that he hadn’t achieved anything in his life comparing his paths to other successful composers and songwriters.

So how do you want to lead your life, with fear or with love?

Do you pick a career out of fear of the unknown or choose to pick love and go for it just because you love it?

Do you seek friendship out of fear of being left out or for the simple reason that you are happy with them?

On more self-reflection over the last few weeks, I accept that being able to do important things in life just out of love is quite idealistic. Love takes time and patience. It needs to face the test of time. Fear can be a good catalyst for us to take important decisions just because we need to do it. A common example, eating healthy and exercising out of fear of illness. It is something we all do out of fear but soon we find joy in it. We cannot bring ourselves to push ourselves for long periods of time just out of fear.

I think how we approach decisions, either with fear or love, affects our attitudes about them. Doing something out of love means we go all in with our full heart and soul. While fear we associate with doubt and pressure, a little bit of good stress or eustress is required in our lives. Our bodies are made to fight fear with adrenaline and systems which help us overcome them. They however are exhausted over time.

However, we cannot live our lives in fear. This fear needs to turn into love after some time. I think we would find ourselves incapable of doing things just out of fear after a certain amount of time.

I perceive this as a choice we make in our lives. Taking decisions out of fear might be a bad start but at least it is one. The sustainability of that decision can only happen through love,

I realise that I am led by fear quite a lot. In the negative sense, the fear of letting people down or not writing something nice or powerful or meaningful every time has hindered my writing. However, it only has made me forget my love for writing and creating. The fear of what people will say or whether or not it would be successful, puts a lot of fear in your heart, instead of love and happiness for what you do. On the flip side, it is fear of “What will I do, if not this so I need to do this” pushes me out of my laziness. Fear is a great catalyst and compels me to write. It, however, does not diminish my love for it in the long run and hence I can sustain it.

So I believe it is how we can balance it and use both these emotions to help us out. If you can lead a meaningful life out of just love and passion, there is nothing like it. However like me, most people love procrastinating, so fear of deadlines and nothing doing anything at all keeps us pursuing things and eventually falling in love with them.

At the end of the movie I mentioned, in the last song ‘Louder than words’ he sings, “Fear or Love baby, don’t say the answer, actions speak louder than words”.

Are you fear or are you love, ask this of everything that wants to be here with you