Don't fear the reaper

Many of you will try to make connection with popular Blue Oyster's song "Don't fear the reaper" but this time I'm talking about some other fear... fear of the reaper that is inside of us and is preventing us to be better, stronger and faster.

Many times in life we are not masters of our destiny. You sometimes can't control the outcome of the day you were indeed wanted to be just like you wanted. Sometimes things just happen and just too often we are not in control. As we are indeed descents of animals (so to speak) our natural reaction is to be scared of unknown and something that we just can't control. I can't stress enough how many times I was in this kind of situation when I just couldn't do something because I was scared of losing something else even tough I could easily make it happen. This could be some kind of mental blockade but more often it's just fear that we will lose more then what we gain.

Prime example is when you scout your opponent's fast Hydralisk then with 3 hatcheries and you must prepare to defend your natural as Protoss. In exact moment you seen Hydralisk then you can feel the tension and how the clock is just ticking and it's only matter of time that Hydra's knock on your door. Problem in this situation is not fear itself but it's PRODUCT that is EFFECT of you in that very moment just stop to think about the fear. You see, 2-3 seconds that were so badly taken away from you (for purpose of your acknowlage of situation) you could easily make them worth and put your defenses bit faster and plan your defense better and more efficient. To make things worse, sometimes you try to replay the past experience of feared thing in your head as our natural thing is to re-live things that occurred in past so we can learn from them. But problem is that our brain doesn't understand we already did learn and further analyzation is just waste of time.

Also, problem can happen when our perception of fear is different from real situation we are in. For example, we can oversize enemy force in our heads and build up much more defense that we need, thus losing minerals that could be spent much better. You see how can fear control our actions? We need to eliminate this factor if we want to make our decisions better and more profitable.

Don't let fear control your action in a way it is natural. If you are really into it, maybe you can control it so it controls your action in more prosperous way?

As we can see in said examples, something from the past is always teacher for the future so maybe answer to this sometimes very frustrating way of losing efficiency in real life tasks and game of Starcraft would be not to take too much notice of it? But then we risk not learning from it. Yes, it's gordian knot that can only be cut one way or another. Flash your memory everytime something bad happens and gamble your learning experience or feel the fear to it's full potential and learn from it but also be ready to care burden of struggle for control and proper decision making.

You can picture this as reaper inside of you just waiting to exploit your vurnability that is in heritage by people to people - it can't be avoided and it's part of our life. But there is solution. Before we dig into it, take one more example from Starcraft and make connection with fear of your boss at job:

Often times Zerg will use Defilers with Swarm and burrow Lurkers and attack with lings under it and your ranged units will be hopeless. In that situation it's enough that you pull back from the Swarm as you can't do damage under it and regroup. Many times you will see players (and even good ones) just not reacting to this treath as their brain perception of information is slower then reaction from opponent. Brain get's information, makes analyzation, compares and then trys to make decision that will in fact only be one of many that will need to get evaluated and in end chosen which is the best. That's a lot of time and it can make difference between losing and wining the battle and thus the game. Sometimes it's not even matter of time but matter of effort - fear just crushes our effort to make something about the attack because we feel demoralized from our past experiences that were only failures and become our and human's most badly anticipated fears - fear of failure and not succeeding.

At job, many people avoid their bosses because of many reasons - maybe they don't work enough but they don't see that as problem and use it while it can last. Maybe they are just scared of boss because he is hard on them so they don't want to get into situation where he have opportunity to say something to you as employee? But what if you indeed got chance to talk with your boss about something that would cause some revolutionary idea that would make you promoted, get you some more money and better status in your work community? Yes, it's call of risk but sometimes it's not even a risk, fear blocks our opportunity that is clear win and that's where things get BAD.

Should I be afraid of mass Hydralisk attack? Is perception valid enough to approve action based purely on feeling of fear?

You see, we can be 100% sure we can do something and that's a fact and you know it but fear is a bug that can whisper in our ears so loud that is heard just enough to make us suspicious. Can you really do it or will you experience that bad feeling from last time that caused or made fear more stronger?

Of course, fear can be our ally and you should treat him as that. Take notice of him everytime but before you listen to anything he has to say - think about how much should you take notice in this situation that is unique every other time. Fear doesn't know about various situation, he know only about situation that already happened and he will take it as granted - it's black or it's white, no gray situation that needs for example 40% of caution made by fear and 60% of courage made by you because you can to make thing you want in you life happen.

Another parallel line can be drawn to fear from your own flaws. Maybe your flaws in general are true and they can be taken as thing to be aware of but you don't need to stimulate them to further put you in behind in every possible aspect. It's weird how come fear can indeed affect some other things that are mandatory bad in our life. It is just as chain reaction caused by something that is perceived based on our past experiences and similarity with current situation that equals strength of fear itself.

Remember that fear has many faces that can make your look into various situation in various ways

But as always, more than we should try to investigate something let's use our investigation to make something change. First of all I would recommend changing mindset that will react faster then fear and then evaluate situation before him so fear can become positive only and not variable that can change. Variable is key point here because you don't want unpredictable component in your life. Never, because as I may reefer to beginning of this article - we can't control some things in our life and sometimes it get's bad and ugly for us. And we don't want that to happen, don't we?

Second thing we should work on is our interpretation of "good" and "bad" fear. In nutshell it's all fear but in outcome it can only be right or wrong decision and so we need to interpret it on the fly rather then assemble it in whole and then do our actions. For example: you need to fear only when Lurkers burrow but now when you see them, if you take piece of piece information that means you can react when treath is not in it's full potential yet and maybe eliminate it. In real life you can take example from fear of dogs. You can indeed take part of fear, to be exact - only it's beginning and look into dog's behavior and signals he produces towards your entity and by that you can really make clear decision is fear valid or invalid no matter what past experiences say to you.

Intuition can be also very important component here - you can make it work for you in numerous situations. Our goal here is not to make that situation better or worse but to make it experience a valid one that will incorporate itself into fear. You see, there is in fact one thing that can control fear - it's things that we experience, that we feel and that we live through. So the answer would be to try feel and live life that will get you experience that you want to dictate your fears so you can manipulate with it better.

We again come back to the beginning - we can't control everything, so we can't make our experiences everytime like we want them to be - but we can be aware that they are in fact capo di tutti capi of everything that will mix with fear and produce final thought.

These "past experiences" are in end only experiences. Sure, we can learn from them and not make same mistakes but many people don't keep in mind that not everything that is similar is exact. Not every Mutalisk harass is so dangerous so you can't counter attack but need to defend first. Evaluate and then act, don't live trough it and then decide. By that you lose time and control and also you lose your ability to make something based on now and not past or even future that is only to come.

Don't also let little dictator to be predominant in your mind, you can use him - right but you never know how powerful your old fear can be to overcome your rational thoughts so keep in mind to use it in very cautious manner. Willpower will also have great role in here because in every try there is possibility of falling down and need to get up, so it would be wise to prepare field first before venturing into the advanced clash with your fears.

Will we be able to overcome shadows from our past to forge our current state and maybe use them in fashion that it serves purpose in real and gaming life? Yes, with little self-discipline but also self-esteem we can run series of training sessions in our head but only if we know that we are doing it right.

Don't prevail the fear, better use it as stimulator that can fuel your strength in every aspect of your life on this world

In any case, don't let the fear of unsuccessful planning of training overcome your will and enthusiasm for it - it's not worth it and in many cases it's not even real, just imaginative illusion that is product of our very scared mind.

Take care,

- ReiKo.cry

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