"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live" - Dorothy Thompson

For those who don't know, Dorothy Thompson was a journalist in Germany in 1934, a brave woman, indeed the first American to be expelled from Germany before the war. In her own words: "My offense was to think that Hitler was just an ordinary man, after all. That is a crime in the reigning cult in Germany, which says Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people— an old Jewish idea. To question this mystic mission is so heinous that, if you are a German, you can be sent to jail. I, fortunately, am an American, so I was merely sent to Paris. Worse things can happen." Dorothy Thompson knew a lot about fear, she saw it build in a worried people in Germany, people who had suffered for decades since the First World War. She saw how fear covered their eyes and allowed Hitler to rise to power. A powerful force indeed is fear.

I thought it about time I included a picture of me on my blog. So here it is, I've also uploaded it into my profile.
As you may have noticed I have taken to starting my blog entries with a quote or two. I try to find a quote that is related to that which I wish to speak of, and one that has inspired me in my life. And this one from Ms Thompson certainly has had an effect on me, it is something I think we all can relate to at some stage of our life. Fear, it steals your life from you, as she says we cannot live with it. I have been afraid recently, to lay some history on this story I must go back to a little over a year ago..

In February of 2006 I got quite sick, violently so, for several days, I am, as any who know me will tell you, not a person who is overly fond of visiting doctors. I have had asthma since I was 2 years old, and so feel the Doctor visits I require for that, are plenty for anyone. But this time I felt something was not right, this was not a bug, or some case of minor food poisoning that I could allow to pass. After some blood tests, they found that my liver function was not good, infact it was downright bad, I'm not a heavy drinker but I do like a beer now and then, or a glass or two of wine with a meal. After several more blood tests, two visits to a specialist and an Gastro Endoscopy (Basically a camera crew crawls down your throat into your stomach), I was told I had NAFLD, "Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease", a mild form of the more serious NASH (which can lead to Cirrhosis). My cholesterol was also very high, and the two were most likely related. I needed to get fit, fast, and lower my cholesterol substantially. the best way to this was exercise. That will explain the previous entries and why I pushed myself to take rowing to such levels. My diet changed over night and a year later I am 4 stone lighter, a hell of a lot happier, and fitter than I've been in ten years. However, in January of this year on a check up blood test my liver function set off alarm bells again, and I will admit I was a little afraid. And that fear is like a weight, like an old fashioned Bucket yoke across your shoulders, it weighs you down and you feel compressed, under pressure, stress builds, every little worry and concern becomes like a national disaster!

In "Back to Methuselah" George Bernard Shaw wrote; "I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while." I appreciate the sentiment, but myself, I hate being sick, or having any malady that prevents me from continuing with my life as normal. Mahatma Ghandi wrote of self belief "If I have the belief I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." and it is something I try to live by. If you believe in your own abilities, then you may truly surprise yourself at what your abilities can achieve. But that philosophy has no place for fear in it. I have spent the last few weeks weakened, and worried, about money, about my future, about my health. In short I lacked the faith, and the belief that I would be ok, that whatever the outcome of my visit to the gastroenterologist I would over come whatever obstacle was put in my way and proceed with my life. And so, up until yesterday I had difficulty seeing past yesterday, I found it hard to imagine anything in my future, you cannot see past what you fear, and I feared going to see the specialist, I feared what he might have found.

Luke 12:28 "If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?" I like that, I'm not a believer myself, but I do enjoy many of the ideals and some of the marvelously put questions in the Christian Bible. "O ye of little faith" Yes that was me, I had little faith, I allowed fear into my life. Yesterday I went to my appointment, the specialist, Dr Stack told me, in his opinion, I had nothing to worry about, that the fat on my liver was most likely caused by Hereditary High Cholesterol, and as long as I kept my cholesterol in check it should be no problem. I have to go back in six months time, during which time I will have had more blood tests for him to plot a graph against and see if my liver function (as he suspects) is fluctuating up and down, or not. With a few simple words my fear was gone and replaced with a sheepish chagrin.

And so I say to all of you who may be worried about about health, money or anything else that May happen but yet may not, you can't fix a problem by worrying about it, you can't fix a problem that might never arise. So why have a fear of it? Why worry about something that does not yet, and may never exist?

Here are a few quotes I like on Fear....

Marie Curie;
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

Marilyn Ferguson
Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.

Aung San Suu Kyi
Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.


In farewell I will say;

You're searching...
For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings - there are no such things.
There are only middles.
~Robert Frost,



Concúbhair