Mer­ri­am-Web­ster de­scribes fear as an un­pleas­ant of­ten strong emo­tion caused by an­tic­i­pa­tion or aware­ness of dan­ger.

Dic­tio­nary.com says fear is a dis­tress­ing emo­tion aroused by im­pend­ing dan­ger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is re­al or imag­ined; the feel­ing or con­di­tion of be­ing afraid.

Too many of us are afraid. We are afraid of our own shad­ow. We are afraid of the truth. We are afraid to speak the truth. We are afraid of the fu­ture and the present and to even ac­knowl­edge our past—the good, bad and ug­ly.

Last week's col­umn took the po­si­tion that the Im­mi­gra­tion Law is not the so­lu­tion for a lack of a prop­er sports de­vel­op­ment plan. Af­ter read­ing the col­umn some­one asked me: "Yuh ain't fraid". Afraid of what I asked? That you will ir­ri­tate peo­ple in high places in foot­ball, foot­ball fans and ex­perts. I didn't hes­i­tate to de­clare there is noth­ing to fear but fear it­self.

The af­ter­math of that con­ver­sa­tion was a feel­ing of dis­ap­point­ment be­cause it re­al­ly spoke to a larg­er is­sue - the fear of hold­ing de­ci­sion-mak­ers ac­count­able. When the old­er gen­er­a­tion fails, it is the young who will pay in full—with their fu­ture.

We need more peo­ple to be­lieve they can be agents of pos­i­tive change and that they can ex­press a view or opin­ion that may not be the pop­u­lar opin­ion or that of "D Boss".

There is a line used, in par­tic­u­lar, in ad­dress­ing crime and cor­rup­tion or il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty - the line is: "If you see some­thing say some­thing".

I re­peat­ed­ly get asked: "Why is sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go go­ing back­ward?" My an­swer is usu­al­ly it's not that sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go is go­ing back­ward, it's just that the rest of the world is go­ing for­ward at a re­al­ly fast pace. We in Trinidad and To­ba­go must not be afraid to en­gage and em­brace the changes and speed by which those changes are oc­cur­ring. At times it feels less of an evo­lu­tion and more of a rev­o­lu­tion. Nonethe­less, we must em­brace change be­liev­ing that we will learn and adapt.

On­ly re­cent­ly, in a dis­cus­sion about sport mar­ket­ing, brand de­vel­op­ment and build­ing out a sus­tain­able sport in­dus­try, I used the ex­am­ple of memes and the im­por­tance of in­di­vid­u­als with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sport mar­ket­ing and brand de­vel­op­ment to be au courant.

In the mod­ern re­al­i­ty, at least at this time, the meme is an im­por­tant cur­ren­cy. That's not to say that re­al­i­ty may not change quick­ly but here again fear - be­ing afraid - can't be a fac­tor.

The meme af­fects every­thing. If your event or sport or­gan­i­sa­tion, na­tion­al or club team isn't a meme, it will not gain trac­tion or at­ten­tion. The meme has been around for decades. Memes even in­sen­si­tive ones gen­er­ate views. Memes tend to show the truth and gen­er­ate "LOLs" (laugh out loud). Memes are dri­ving the in­ter­net and can make or break a mar­ket­ing or pub­lic re­la­tions cam­paign. Meme cul­ture is con­stant­ly evolv­ing.

It's the fear fac­tor again. If a sport or­gan­i­sa­tion or na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body is afraid of its own shad­ow and past, it will not have the con­fi­dence to em­brace and en­gage with the mod­ern re­al­i­ties. In­stead of feel­ing fear­ful em­brace the chal­lenges with a feel­ing of joy. Cre­ate the ex­cite­ment. Don't be afraid.

When done cor­rect­ly, meme mar­ket­ing can be very suc­cess­ful.

"Here in the rel­e­vance econ­o­my, you can't suc­ceed if you're too cool to meme. Dig­ni­ty is a for­got­ten virtue and clout is king ." - Will Welch, GQ Glob­al Ed­i­to­r­i­al Di­rec­tor.