The Road to Steemfest | Fears

Fears. I do have them, like anyone else, but not as much about the social aspects, being awkward or the like. That is something I've largely gone through and gotten over since the last Steemfest. Actually, my biggest fear is that the plane's gonna crash before I even get to Thailand. However, knowing that flying is statistically safer than driving a car, there's not much reason to stress about that either. Not like stressing would even change anything.

Fear. When put into its basic elements, it's just a stress reaction to certain stimuli. And the lesson from psychology is that people can be reprogrammed to have a different reaction to stimulus – this is especially the goal with cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. Your inner monologue is arguably even more important than the stimuli; when someone is put to a wobbling suspension bridge with an attractive person representing the opposite sex, the increased heart beat, stress, is often interpreted as infatuation. You make the situation to be what you keep telling yourself it is about. These narratives become a habit, because we like the familiar, so much that it can prevent us do or be what we want. We imprison ourselves. Not me, not him, not her, but you yourself.

Pushing through scary things, is like developing the archetypical warrior trait; even failure is only a chance to grow stronger and more resilient. Positive, negative – they're just stamps we decide to attach to events based on our beliefs. Warrior has a different set of believes than one who is trying to avoid pain at all cost. Both end up feeling about pain according to their own beliefs. I guess you could say that you should choose your beliefs wisely.

That is what I think at least, based on the the current weather report about the whirlwinds in my head. It's known to be chaotic by nature though.

With all that being said, I can't believe I only have 4 working days before my flight to Bangkok. Holy crap. I don't think the reality hits until I'm actually on the plane, it just doesn't feel like of this world, yet. It'll be nice to have a pause on the grind and skip the depressing Finnish November altogether.