Your Fear, Your Strength

The word, 'fear,' gets a bad rap in our contemporary vocabulary. The word originally meant, 'calamity,' or 'disaster.' We associate it with an emotion aroused due to an event, real or imaginary. Fear is instinctive. It stops us from injuring ourselves physically. A fear of fire, for instance, is innate. Fear itself is not negative. Holding on to it causes anxiety. Exaggerating a constructive fear out of proportions makes it destructive. Feeling it and letting it pass, conquering it, results in progress.
There seems to be a missing component, a catalyst that turns fear into action. Allow me to suggest that the missing component is, courage - an ability to act.

Fear + Courage = Action

History is littered with stories of ordinary men who courageously stood up for a cause. They believed in the improvement of life and we reap today the consequences of their bravery. I fear injustice and poverty ruining the potential of nations. I fear greed and crime invading the innocence of children and future generations. Yes, I am afraid that if I don't act, circumstances will not change. If I don't speak, lives cannot be transformed. If I don't write, dreams will be left unfulfilled. I am afraid that lives will be incomplete if we hold on to fear, instead of letting it pass through.

What you fear can be your strength. Use it to step out of your comfort, take courage and then act.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." 
Frank Herbert, Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, "Dune"