This week's Mental barrier is Fear and Despair. I decided to put both of them together as they are so closely related that it is extremely difficult to tell them apart but they both need to be addressed separately
Despair – This trait takes an interesting form. Despair is the mental view that something will be so horrible that the mere thought of it stops you from progressing forward. This can easily be seen when someone states that “after XX event, the world would be so bad that I wouldn’t want to live in it, so I won’t”. This thought process gives the person a complete aversion to even wishing to survive. Despair is the most difficult barrier to get over simply because a person in despair has lost all hope and is completely apathetic to the idea that the end of the world as we know it is worth surviving.
Fear – Fear often looks like despair but, thankfully with fear not all hope has been lost because of this it is much easier to deal with because all hope has not been lost. People are often afraid to put together a plan or talk things out with their family or spouse from the fear of possibilities outside of their control and the inability to have immediate answers to the issues they will be facing. This is especially true in a situation where you have a family involved as the sheer terror around not being able to fully protect your children during every conceivable disaster. The truth of the matter is…not one of us has all the answers. We can only prepare so much and the rest will be left up to being able to your ability to improvise during a disaster.
