Blog Post 1
Hello everyone! The topic that I have in mind is “fear, a powerful motivator” I changed the previous topic that I submitted to Coach a little by focusing on fear itself and turned it into a topic broad enough to cover a few interesting questions. Such as: How has fear been used in a Mexican American household? How does the use of fear in a home differ between ethnicities or cultures? Can fear be used for good?
I think I will cover some of those questions on this blog but I will not go too in-depth. But first, what do I mean with “fear, a powerful motivator”? I mean how motivated can you be when you are scared? Have you ever been so stressed about an assignment that you start to think you will not make the deadline? But as soon as you think about the different outcomes of not submitting… a RUSH enters your body and… you pull it off. Or have you ever been so scared you don’t want to move? Like when you are covered by blankets and you feel/hear something strange but you don’t want to look as foolish as it feels being scared of strange around. Well, that’s the issue, fear can be a powerful motivator, but can also motivate people to do nothing.
Within current politics, there is a lot being said in Latinx media that brings fear to communities but the messages being spread usually carry some misinformation. Who else is the victim of Whatsapp forwards? I know that my mother is sending me forwards every so often to check the validity.
More recently, she received a video forward that was urging people to shelter in because there was going to be a civil war of sorts. Following that, she received a text forward about ANTIFA attacking, marshal law, vaccines being a way to track people, 5g being bad and much more. This put her in a frenzy. She needed to stalk up on food! Her first thought was El Super, but I knew waiting in that long line to pay was not worth the possibility of covid over a false text.
I was left puzzled by the response my mother had because I think that if my mother was willing to mobilize so fast for her wellbeing, how fast would people organize if they cared as much for the well being of their neighbors or other people in general. Well sometimes not that much because that same woman who took a text so seriously has also allowed herself like many of us to fear the possibility of change. My mother has always had the idea that tattoos and piercings are “bad” (in her definitions) so she never expected my sister and me to grow up and acquire one or two. The fear she had was that because we had piercings we were different people, and would be perceived by our looks. What remains is that fear that she has and does not know where she got from which is a dominating force that is present in our everyday lives pressuring us.
So how does fear motivate you?
