Fear

//I wrote this essay for my English exam. I edited a few grammatical errors but other than that, this is exactly what I handed in to my teacher. The title is 'fear', and thus my post title.//

        Fear. It is as strong an emotion as the other four-lettered emotions we are familiar with. Love. Hate. Some people see fear as cowardly, others see it as something you feel because you still have things and people you love and need to protect. Sometimes, when the people you love and care about are taken away from you, you no longer feel afraid because you no longer have anything to lose.

        The antonym of fear is fearless. What exactly does being fearless mean? Different people define fearless differently. Taylor Swift defines fearless and not being afraid to have lots of fear. Veronica Roth describes fearless as the ability to act in spite of fear. I agree with both. Harry Potter was willing to surrender himself to the man who will murder him just to protect his friends. The old couple in 'Titanic' faced their fear together and just slept side-by-side instead of trying to escape the sinking ship. Ask yourself, are you fearless enough to do all of this? Some of you might be able to, others might not. I don't think I could get rid of my fears so easily. Who says books and movies don't teach you anything?

        I have a list of fears. We all do. But I bet mine is longer. Mostly, I am afraid of pain and death. How ironic it is, that I am afraid of the two most inevitable things in the world. Some people might think that it is ridiculous for me to fear death, since everybody has to go through it at some point of our lives. But maybe it's not death I am afraid of. Maybe it's the pain that comes with death. Very few people get easy deaths on Earth, and when I say easy death, I mean dying in your sleep. My mom said she hopes she can die that way. In her sleep. Painless. But dying in your sleep will really suck to the people who care about you. One day you are here, and the next, without a warning, you are gone. No one even gets to say goodbye. Not even you, the dying one, because you won't know that you'll be dying. It will scare me to death if I knew in advance when I was going to die. Pun not intended.

        Cancer scares me. Dying in an accident scares me. Getting stabbed in the stomach scares me. Falling off a roller coaster scares me. In the end you can just conclude that pain and death scare me. When I go to amusement parks, I always have this fear where I go on a roller coaster and there was a loose screw but the technicians did not notice it. Then the whole roller coaster structure comes tumbling down and I fall to my death. That is why I always avoid going on roller coasters. I also have this scenario formed in my head that when I go for a medical check-up, the doctor will look up to me with a serious face and inform me that I have cancer. That is why I avoid hospitals and clinics too. They remind me of the sicknesses I might be carrying. Well, as some people say, ignorance is bliss. Although in my case I'm pretty sure it's just me being a coward. My mom goes for all sorts of check-ups and she is never afraid. My mother is very brave.

        Injections and dentists scare me too. The more fears I list down the more pathetic I feel. I don't think my friends have these kinds of stupid fears. Those who wear braces go for dental appointments all the time. They have their permanent teeth removed. All I have to do is to be called for a scaling session and I start freaking out. Who knows, the dentist can accidentally drop a pair of scissors into my throat. Okay, now I'm just being paranoid.

        Anyway, I'm just slowly trying to get rid of my fears one by one, you know? I really want to overcome my fear of injections. It's dumb really, for me to be afraid of something which helps to immunize me from a disease, which is another one of my fears. Does it make sense? Am I confusing you? I hope not. Basically, I am afraid of cervical cancer but is not willing to go for the immunization jab because I am also afraid of injections. Ha.

        I know we both have our fair share of fears. My fears are not really something personal, so I don't mind sharing them with you. But I hope that I can get rid of some of them soon, and I hope you will too.

(P/S: I got 42/50 for this essay)