Are You Afraid of the Boogeyman?

As children, we are afraid of the Boogeyman.

Where is he? Is he under the bed? Is he in the closet? We can't see him, but we are convinced he's there.

Our parents come into our room. "Go to sleep", they tell us. "There's no such thing as the Boogeyman", they say.

They pull back the sheets and show us under the bed, they open the closet. "See, nothing there."

But when they turn out the lights and leave, the fear returns.

Then we grow up, and we no longer fear the Boogeyman. But he doesn't go away. He simply changes form. He is no longer the monster under the bed, but he's no less scary.

Our fears become more sophisticated. We lay in bed at night, awake, afraid of our new Boogeymen:

Our?“What Ifs”.

• What if I fail?
• What if I lose my job?
• What if they don't like my work?
• What if they are saying bad things about me behind my back?

But the simple truth of the matter still remains. The Boogeyman doesn't exist.

Our parents were right. He's only in our head. Just a scary figment of our imagination.

Almost everything we fear is imaginary.?It's not happening to us in the present moment. It's not part of our current reality. It's a made-up future. A figment of our imagination.

The Stoic philosopher Seneca put it best...

We are scaring ourselves.

Do you really want to know who the Boogeyman is? Don't look in the closet. Don't peek under the bed.

Look in the mirror.

You are the Boogeyman.

You always were.

Once you realize this, you no longer need to fear the Boogeyman.

You just have to stop scaring yourself.