Fear, the Worst Disease

I will spare you the boring details that lead me to write this essay when I was in 8th Grade. Instead, I will summarize them in two well known numbers 9/11. 

Anyways, here's a translation of what 13 years-old me wrote shortly after that terrible day.

Fear, the worst disease

Many times, I think about the evils of this world, and I believe that if the babies that are still in their mother’s womb had any knowledge of what awaits them out here, they would be terrified. Yet, I truly believe life is not that bad and it has many surprises; good and bad. Fear is one of the most scariest diseases for it destroys us slowly, discapasitating us from confidently walking towards productive goals. Fear is a feeling of great turmoil about a danger, real or imaginary, that if it is not managed intelligently can even cause death. From the moment we are born till we die we live fearing a number of things.

 

Nothing moves us, but everything scares us: pain, a terminal disease, failure, success, terrorism, hurricanes, Anthrax, other things… Why live locked up? To not get sick? To not die in a car accident? To not be harmed? Abused? Murder? Each human being has its own destiny, which we can modify according to how we live and strive to make a good future for ourselves and others. We cannot go around life with the constant fear that something horrible is inevitable about to happen. We have to outdo ourselves in each goal we set, each challenge we get, always offering the best of our capacities.

 

We ought to aim and move towards the positive longings and desires we have, even if God surprises us and we are unable to complete what we wanted. If we don’t achieve something, let it not be because we didn’t try, but because God didn’t will it so. About 80% of Puerto Ricans, and perhaps the world, live with great fear of the unexpected and unknown. Fear is like a disease, it alters the proper function of the body, upsetting the emotional stability that helps us work as useful citizens of our society.

 

Let’s not allow the artists of fear destroy and annihilate, without mercy, our dreams and longings. News like the one on November 1, 2001, in Mayagüez, where a 13-year-old boy took his own life, dismay and depresses us. Apparently, everything in his family was going well, why then did he commit suicide with his dad’s gun? Many other similar questions arise without a satisfactory answer. The mental peace of humanity it’s in danger and it is our responsibility to issue a voice of alert upon such great evil, fear. I have a stain in my brain, cancer surrounds my family, my brother and mother have diabetes, and all my aunts have high blood pressure. Even before this daunting medical family history I do not give up nor I’m afraid. I have many goals to reach and I will.