It is said that humans are born with only two fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Anything else that we are afraid of, we have developed, maybe through experience or maybe through imagination.
If our fears interfere with our daily life, they may have morphed into phobias. At the other extreme, some fears are so slight that they are more accurately classified as superstitions.
And of course there are not only degrees of fear, but also degrees of likelihood of actually experiencing the fear. For example, a person may be deathly afraid of snakes, but if he lives in Greenwich Village, he isn’t very likely to encounter one.
I bring this up because some people believe that if they procure a life insurance policy or have a will drafted, they will die. I think that in most cases it is not a real fear, but rather just an excuse to avoid confronting an unpleasant topic. But hey, people are afraid of stranger things than that!
Of course we all will die whether or not we procure life insurance or have a will drafted. But not addressing those issues will unnecessarily complicate the lives of those left behind.
You may think that you have dodged your fear and improved your life expectancy by not having a will drafted, but even though you didn’t take the time to have one drafted, New Jersey did it for you (via the intestacy laws).
Everyone has a will, either the one they took the time to make or the one New Jersey made. Now looking around at the way New Jersey does business, what would make you think that they would put your interests first when they draft your will?
But back to fears. We can’t let fear dictate our everyday decisions. Heck, many times, our fears are totally out of whack with reality. Of the following list, what do you fear most; alligators, snakes, sharks, bears or deer? Few will answer deer, but they kill more people in a typical year than the rest of the animals on the list combined. Not by attacking humans, but by causing fatal car accidents.
Sometimes we must face our fears and do unpleasant tasks, such as confronting our own mortality. By doing so, we can spare our loved ones from tasks that are potentially far more unpleasant.
I will close with two quotes. Malcolm X said "So over you is the greatest enemy a man can have and that is fear." And Bertrand Russell said “To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”