林越越 浙江传媒学院

                                               Fear or love 

Good morning ladies and gentlemen

During Spring Festival this year, I paid a visit to my cousin and I was a little surprised and saddened when she told me she spent New Year's Eve alone and did not even go back home to see her parents. "I have to stay here and prepare for the civil service exam. It's only one month away but I'm gonna make it this year" she said.My cousin is almost 30 years old and it is the 8th time that she has taken this exam.This year, more than 1400,000 people, most of them undergraduate and graduate students, registered for the exam to compete to become a civil servant.This means that, only one in 88 will secure a position. For some highly sough-after positions like HR management, the ratio is about 3000-to-1.

Why is that?Being a civil servant,well known for its unbearably tedious and rigid working style, is now all the rage among students. 

"Because it's safe. You are gonna have stable welfare, allowance and everything. Best of all, you won't get fired," said one of my friends who is also determined to be a civil servant, despite her keen interest in fashion design. Sadly, it is an answer shared by most of those examinees.It is true that the lure of security often overrides a dream that seems unlikely, but what comes into question is whether this thinking is based on reason, or just fear of being unsuccessful. Take a closer look at what we do nowadays, you will find fear is actually everywhere. We jostle to study the most popular major in college regardless of our own interest, because we dread being unable to find a good job after graduation. We scrimp and save to buy an apartment at an exorbitant price  because we are afraid that we will have nowhere to live in the future. We go on blind dates and settle for someone we don't love at all because we are terrified of growing old and dying alone.How pathetic!

This is a problem facing us today. Living expenses, working pressure, and anxieties for our future have become our top concern, but when asked what we are interested in and what we dream of being, most of us fall into awkward silence. In other words, We are more inclined to make choices based on what we fear rather than what we love.

Fear and love are the two basic emotions that motivate human behaviour, the former, like a downward spiral,dragging us down to pressure, anger and the darkest corner of our hearts;the latter, like an upward staircase, leading us to passion, joy and the ideal of humanity. Learning to make the sincere choice to love but not to fear in every situation is the way to discover your true self and make a difference in the world.
 
Ladies and Gentlemen, fear is inevitable but being manipulated by fear is optional.Choose love over fear because when love is felt within our hearts, fear will melt away.   

Thank you very much.