How Do Fears Change With Age?
Jan 10th, 2008 | By Dan O'Neil | Category: Personal Development, Questions, confidenceHere’s an interesting question that I came across quite by accident the other day. How do fears change with age? My initial reaction was that they don’t, although I feel that was just the quickest answer I could come up with at the time. I’ve been wrangling with this one since then and it will be really interesting to get some feedback and answers to this question from others.
The coach and self-improvement junkie in me really wants to say that fears increase or decrease only through our thoughts and feelings about them. People have considerably different approaches to their fears and although there are not many people who you’ll find who can genuinely say they do not fear anything, there are a good many who are able to overcome their fears. I guess the question of age relates to our fears changing as we approach the mid to late stages of our life. Is it possible then that this can be linked to our aging body and perhaps a perceived frailty that that brings?
An answer to this question “how do fears change with age” is not truly complete without looking at the whole of the life-cycle. When we are born, our fears and concerns are around milk, warmth, close contact with people etc. As we grow, our fears evolve as we are subjected to the fears of our parents, carers, teachers and other people who have responsibility for our welfare. These childhood fears are further enhanced by the media around us and our relative lack of ability to understand the world around us (compared to the adult mind).
Next, for most of us, our fears surround work, money, relationships, children, family etc. Then they swiftly move onto growing old and this issue of frailty and being cared for in our twilight years. I suppose for most of us, there is a fear of death throughout our lives, which may increase as we get older and it becomes more imminent.
I genuinely believe that the majority of our fears can be understood and overcome and although I am not yet old enough to know, my hope is that my own experience of fear will continue to lessen as I get older and understand myself better. To me, fear becomes a major issue when it is not understood, or it is not faced or challenged in anyway. I really am looking forward to your thoughts on this, please feel free to comment.
I have allways feared death but getting older I am almost welcoming it. So it seems @50 I am getting sad as days go on. Maybe more accoustomed to the shit this world has to offer. Am i cynical?, yes according to this worlds values.
I can see why Our God turned his back on us.
Dan O’Neil says… There are lots of people who feel this way – I’d suggest it’s the vast majority of people. Of course it doesn’t have to be this way…
Thanks for your comment.
Great post. Could I translate this to german.?
Peter´s last blog post..Wolf-Garten RQ 250 Rasentrimmer 7126000
Dan O’Neil says… Hi Peter, Thanks for the question – I’m happy for you to translate this, provided you make reference and link to the original post.
I think people also have more fears as the get older. They see things that they never looked at before. When your young most people have the idea it never could happen to me and after years of life you see it happen to people around you or even you.
Dan O’Neil says… It certainly appears that way. It doesn’t have to be though!
I think there’s definitely two stages in life. One is the stage where you have to overcome struggle and fight for survival and another part is where you preserve what you have accomplished.
Exactly where that barrier lies is different for each person but we all know when that shift occurrs in our lives where we start self-preserving ourselves and look back on the “good older days” (even if they weren’t good).
Dan O’Neil says… It doesn’t have to be that way! One of my goals is to live in the moment – where there is no need for analysis or reflection on the past or indeed the future.
I agree with Ken, based on experience I’ve got lots of friends that really worried a lot as they get older. I have a question, can fear lead to lost of memory when you’re old?
Dan O’Neil says… There are some fields of thought that think that dementia is a way for a person to detach from themselves in order to ready themselves for death. I’m pretty sure that it’s a tough thing to prove, but it seems to make some sense. Just as when we start life, we aren’t aware of our surroundings or even ourselves to any degree and we slowly “arrive” in our bodies as we grow. If death weren’t seen as such a “bad” thing, we’d probably celebrate it in a similar way to birth!
I agree with Ken. We get more fears when we get older. This is because we get to be exposed to a lot mire of circumstances and experiences. But, as we grow older our most common fear is death.
Dan O’Neil says… Thanks Susan