Transformational Income: The Only Thing We Have to Fear....

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear… is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

With those words of his first inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to break the grip of fear that held the country in the midst of the Great Depression.

Technically, Roosevelt was right. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. But in the midst of crisis, upheaval and transition, it is so easy for us to come up with a bunch of other fears. The fear of poverty is one, perhaps the main one, but there are others.

Napoleon Hill listed Six Basic Fears in his book, Think and Grow Rich. In addition to the fear of poverty, he listed the fear of criticism, the fear of ill health, the fear of the loss of love of someone, the fear of old age, and the fear of death. Let’s consider these five separately.

The Fear of Criticism
Are you afraid to try anything new? Do you try to fit in with the crowd, keep up with the Joneses? You are probably afraid of being criticized. This fear is almost as universal as the fear of poverty and its effects can be just as fatal your personal achievement and your success.

The major symptoms of this fear are:

Self-Consciousness – nervousness, timidity and the awkwardness it causes
Inferiority Complex – a shyness that may be misunderstood of aloofness
Lack of Initiative – failure to take chances, embrace opportunities, express your own opinion. Lacking confidence in your own ideas, giving evasive answers to questions, dishonesty in word and deed
Lack of Ambition – mental and physical laziness, lack of self-assertion, accepting defeat too readily, giving up too soon

The Fear of Ill Health
This fear is common, but not exclusive, to Baby Boomers who came of age in a time when people grew old more quickly than is the case today. Reaching one’s fifties and sixties was seen as the beginning of the decline into old age and general system failure. That is no longer true; with improved health care, increased longevity, and an awareness of your own role and responsibility in maintaining your health, old age is no longer the specter that it was. The fifties and sixties are merely the beginning, rather than the end of middle-age. The symptoms include:

Autosuggestion – looking for, and expecting to find all sorts of symptoms. The habit of trying all the fads and “isms” of medical quackery. Having, as your main topic of conversation, operations, accidents, and/or bodily functions and dysfunctions.
Hypochondria – suffering (and often enjoying it) from imaginary illnesses brought on by negative thinking or adopting the symptoms of someone else
Lack of Exercise – over-attention to aches and pains that interferes with proper physical exercise or causes you to avoid outdoor life
Self-Coddling – do you frequently make a bid for sympathy, using some real or imagined illness as the lure? And if your family and friends won’t give you the attention and sympathy you want, do you lavish it upon yourself? Do you feign illness to cover for plain laziness or lack of ambition?
Intemperance – Do you abuse alcohol, drugs, or over-the-counter remedies to try to destroy discomfort instead of trying to find and eliminate the cause of it?

The Fear of Ill Health is often related to the Fear of Poverty as we worry about the cost of health care, health insurance, doctor’s bills, hospital bills, and even burial costs.

The Fear of the Loss of Love
Jealousy and other similar forms of dementia praecox grow out of our inherited fear of losing the love of someone we care about. Symptoms are:

Jealousy – being suspicious of friends and loved ones without reason. General suspicion of everyone, absolute faith in no one
Gambling – gambling, stealing, cheating or otherwise take hazardous chances to provide money for your loved ones with the belief that love can be bought

The Fear of Old Age
The specters of ill-health, diminished sexual power, poverty, and loss of independence all contribute to the fear of old age. Its symptoms include:

The tendency to slow down and develop an inferiority complex at the age of mental maturity
The habit of speaking apologetically of yourself as “being old” instead of expressing gratitude that you have reached the age of wisdom and understanding
The habit of killing off initiative, imagination and self-reliance by falsely believing you are too old to exercise those qualities.
The failure to “act your age” by going to one extreme or the other – acting like an old codger or crone or dressing and acting like a teenager

The Fear of Death
To some this is the cruelest of all the basic fears. It is also the most futile. Death will come eventually. Accept it as a necessity, and pass the thought out of your mind. You never know, it might not be as bad as you think.

The entire world is made up of only two things: Energy and Matter. Neither can be created nor destroyed. Both can be transformed, but neither can be destroyed.
Life is Energy. If neither Energy nor Matter can be destroyed, it follows that life cannot be destroyed. It can only be transformed. Death is mere transition.

The primary symptom of the fear of death is the habit of thinking about dying instead of making the most of life.

Remember, all we have to fear is fear itself.