FEAR OR FLIGHT

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

By: Emmanuel Onyekwere

Whenever we are faced with that ugly condition, that ugly moment, when fear like an angry-hungry lion roars on our heads, like anopheles mosquitoes sing unsweet songs in our mind, when all we could hear is run! run! and nothing else. By then courage has been swallowed up by fear, our only source of encouragement a prisoner has become in the threshold of fear. When all the sweet dreams had become nightmares, all friends become enemies and our models are no longer worthy of emulation.

            That moment when hope only seems like an illusion and a mirage, you look up and all you see is blood, when you journey into the future by way of investigation, you only come back discouraged and even more pessimistic, nothing is so sure anymore, nothing to trust again, even the best of friends, not even fathers or mothers, not brothers and not sisters. Every step seems so wrong and every action looks too bad while every effort proves so abortive.

            There are only two visible options in this case, fight or flight you either flee from it or fight it, you either run from it or attack it, none of the options is better than the other but what you want out of life determines which one is correct or not. My grandmother once told me that “there is no wrong decision”, all the decisions we make in life are very correct but decisions become wrong if they aren’t geared toward the achievement of our goals and objectives. for instance: I am not wrong if I decide to board a plane to Jamaica but that decision becomes wrong if I have nothing to do in Jamaica rather in Spain.

            So it is with the decision you make either to fight or flight. If your decision in life is to succeed then flight would have been a very wrong option for you, in one of my poems I wrote:

                                    “Fear like a baby grows when nursed…….

                                    Fear knocked on my door….

                                    I sent courage and there was no one there

                                    Fear knocked again….

                                    I sent my eyes and I saw a mountain of badluck”   

I entreat you to believe with me that fear does not exist except in our minds  and one thing I have learnt about fear is that is cannot co-habit with  courage, so where there is courage, fear  finds another home without immunity (i.e courage).

There is no so much difference between fight and flight, not really in their spelling or sound, English would proudly call them homophones but I totally disagree. The only difference between them is the letter ‘L’ in between and this letter ‘L’ means so much to me because it has so many negatives impacts on how we handle fear: ‘L’ will tell you ‘Leave it!’ (leave courage, leave your dreams, leave your destiny, leave your faith, leave your goals and so on) ‘L’ also means load (load of fear, load of pain, load of pessimism, load of faithlessness, load of carelessness and so on). ‘L’ could also mean Laziness, Lack of focus, Lackluster, Lame etc.

So what should we do? We push out the ‘L’ and fight. Fight every fear, fight laziness, fight all the negative loads, fight lack of focus, fight lackluster, fight faithlessness, fight every dark spot and you know what? There is nothing you fight in the name Jesus in the spirit of faith that we cannot conquer. Children of God, victory is ours, and there no victory without a fight,, without much ado we must wage war now against FEAR and have our real victory in Christ Jesus.