If you have cyberphobia, you shouldn't be seeing this article.

Yes, we humans are faced with fears everyday. Some may be common, like claustrophobia, the fear of tight spaces, and others may be unheard of, like arachibutyrophobia, the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. However, fears all have one thing in common - they obscure our aspirations, desires, and dreams. We are not born with fear - we gain it as our life goes on. And, like all things, fear is temporary. However, fear is like fat - it takes work to get rid of.

Have you ever seen the movie Arachnophobia? Good movie, I know. If you haven't the basic plot synopsis is this - a doctor with a fear of spiders must face up to that fear to save his small town from a colony of extremely powerful arachnids. I'm not going to ruin the ending for you, but all I will tell you is this - the only way the doctor can save his love ones is by defeating the spiders directly, no matter how scary they may be. And even though that Arachnophobia is only a Hollywood film (and the chances of us being forced to face our fears to save our loved ones from evil spiders is slim to none,) it still rings true in one aspect - facing your fears is going to come to you, whether it be voluntary or involuntary, and what you do in that situation matters on your courage.

Now, for all I know, the entire people body on this website may have no phobias at all, or everyone may have anatidaephobia, the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you. But there is one point that still holds true - courage. Even if you don't have a real (or imaginary) phobia, we all get scared at some point in time. Riding that giant roller coaster for the first time, performing in front of a tough audience, etc., but the way we cope with the situation determines whether we show that fear or not.

For a real life example, take Donny Osmond, a singer, actor and songwriter, who had a severe case of agoraphobia. It was so bad that he nearly passed out in and was almost unable to act in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. However, with the help of therapy (and medication, too,) he was able to overcome his fear, not only because he had help but he made the decision to get that help. For another example of a man who lived his life in fear and believed in nothing but survival everyday until he grew into an adult, see Peter Liciaga, who is now on the film Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Our actions determine who we truly are - we are not born with our thoughts. You could face a traumatic event regarding the dark, and may become a scotophobic, or a horrific event where you lose a boner, and become a medomalaculophoic, but just because something in the past happened shouldn't change who you truly are. In fact, in the immortal words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and even though he said it in 1932, it still implies to us today.

Information on FDR is provided by http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/

Most of the phobias here are on http://phobialist.com

The imaginary fear anatidaephobia is from Gary Larsen's The Far Side.

Information on Danny Osmond was provided by http://www.phobias-help.com/Famous_People_With_Phobias.html

Peter Liciaga's homepage is http://liciagasbroadwayandbeyond.blogspot.com/. Yeah, it isn't much, but credit is needed.