From 1929 to 1939, the world went under the darkest economic age called the Great Depression. More than 20% of the United States population was unemployed, and many, if not most of the population, saved penny by penny just to get by. There was no Social Security or FDIC back then, leaving even the elderly unsure of what to do after their entire life savings got wiped out.

In 1933, after winning the presidential election, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) uttered this famous phrase in his first inaugural address:

 

“the only thing we have to fear is… fear itself.”

 

But fear can also manifest in other facets of life, not just money. For example, if you tell me to talk with even just 3 or more people, I’ll have a great fear of focusing on who to talk to, and thus subconsciously choose to say nothing. If you tell me to dance or sing, I’ll decline for fear of embarrassing myself. If you tell me to collect honey from a hive of honey bees even though I’ve seen Youtube videos that they won’t sting easily, the fear of them stinging me gives me enough anxiety to make knee-jerk reactions.

 

 

While there are some fears that may last for the rest of our lives, there are many that we can actually conquer. We conquer those fears by simply taking action. By taking action, we understand what we do not know before. Then, the fear subsides, whether or not the outcome is successful. If it’s not successful, we’ll just do it next time with what we learned before.

According to Forbes, there are many specific ways to conquer fear. Among them are:

1. Understand fear and embrace it;
2. Educate yourself;
3. Practice;
4. Get help;
5. Have a positive attitude.

Training is usually a great way to not only gain skills and knowledge of a specific set of subjects, it also forces us to take action and gradually lowers our fear. In time, we become competent to a point where the fear is totally gone.

Finally, let’s return to the topic of the Great Depression. You may get a feeling that our grandparent generation, as a whole, may be very conscious of how they spend money. That’s because they’ve lived through the Great Depression. Can you imagine if you don’t have any savings, with no welfare programs available, and unable to find a job that can provide even the most basic of necessities such as food and shelter – not just for themselves, but also for their families? That fear must be immense to them.

The ones who survived have gained a wealth of financial knowledge, like saving money, living below your means, and keeping the cars they have now. They must make absolutely certain that they will not go through this again. You can look at some of those savings tips at Wife.org. It’s also worth a visit again to my post about compound interest.

-Sam