The fear of life is the same as the fear of death. What happens when you die? At least from a physical point of view, you have nonaction of the physical organism. What happens when you are afraid to live? You have nonaction. You subject yourself to becoming the total effect of your surroundings.
Similarly, reactions to these fears are the same. When confronted with death, one may react with a flurry of desperate actions in order to prevent it. When one is confronted with having to face life, he may also react in the same way. Feelings of sadness and regret are part of this fear too.
Do you know what makes death and the fear of life so fearful? The illusion of finality! In death, one fears that the final reality for Soul will be the loss of the physical body. No more life, no more love, no more fun! When one fears life, he is afraid that the choices he makes will lock him into a certain limiting state of consciousness, that he won't be able to be free once the choice is made. That he will be frozen in time and space - rendered limited, like death. Rather than risk getting involved with life and the possibility of becoming frozen, he doesn't act or get involved with life at all. This is the truly humorous part, for when one refuses to get involved with the life he's in, then he is truly dead. He has locked himself into inaction - death - the very thing he was trying to avoid!