The demons within us

Jim Nantz, a CBS Sports announcer, mentioned on the air during a golf tournament a couple of weeks ago that he has a severe snake phobia; even to the point of waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking snakes are in his bed. John Madden, the former NFL coach of the Oakland Raiders and football announcer has retired from broadcasting Sunday Night Football on NBC because of his fear of flying. Tony Kornheiser, a color analyst for ESPN's Monday Night Football, recently resigned for the same reason.

You can name something, literally anything, and someone, somewhere is afraid of it; from butterflies, to grasshoppers, to cockroaches. A recent Harris Poll national survey found that 56 percent of American adults admit they now fear or once did fear monsters. The survey found that 86 percent of adults and 91 percent of youngsters admitted to being very afraid of something. Almost 20 percent of all adults also said they are scared of more things now than they were as a child.

It's easy to understand kids being afraid of things because their knowledge of the world is so limited. Perhaps the greatest fear people face is fear of the unknown and there is much more that is unknown in a child's life than an adult's. You would think that as we age, mature, and learn about the world that our fears would go away and yet they don't. In fact, as the poll above suggests, some people discover even MORE things to fear the older they get.

I think the reason for this is that, at our core, we're all pretty insecure because in every person's life, there are far more things we don't control than things we do. We could lose our job, someone dear to us could leave us or die, some fool in a rogue nation could unleash their nuclear arsenal and destroy most of the planet in the process, a disease could ravage our bodies, a severe economic depression could upend the way we lead our lives, a severe personal depression could impact on our sanity and totally change the way we see and define the world, friends can desert us, people can criticize us, and the list goes on and on. We're actually in control of very little and that's the very breeding ground for fear.

On the other hand, all of us have the opportunity to be much more in control of our lives than we currently are. We can do good things in the world. We can donate our time, our labor, our money and our talent to make the world a better place. We can refuse to criticize others until our own house is in order. We can see the glass of water as being half full rather than half empty. We can treat others the way we want to be treated. We can volunteer to help those less fortunate than us. We can honor our commitments. We can be truthful in all things. We can give back more than we take. We can make the world a better place because we are in it. And when we choose to emphasize the positive rather than the negative, miracles happen and demons disappear.

There's a world-wide movement underway called Playing For Change and at the forefront of that movement is a song recorded by 15 different people and groups from all around the globe called Stand By Me, originally recorded many years ago by Ben E. King.

If you want to brighten up your day and replace pessimism with optimism, Google either Playing For Change or Stand By Me on your computer and watch the video. If it doesn't rattle your cage, send goose-bumps up your spine and bring a tear to your eye, you better check your pulse to make sure you're still breathing. The overriding message is that we're all in this together and we need each other, perhaps more than ever before.

"When the night has come

Emphasize the good things in your life, get rid of the bad, help instead of hinder, concentrate on positives instead of negatives, give people a second chance, help those who can't help themselves, love like you've never loved before and most, if not all, of your fears will slowly slip away.