1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
|
I spend a fair amount of time thinking about fear. My own mostly, but sometimes how others get through or past their fear.
I listen to a history podcast, particularly military history. I'm interested in warrior cultures, how that way of life manifests itself in the various places it's come up in history, be it amoung the tribes of North America pre-western contact, or special forces soldiers in Vietnam. In practical terms of human behavior there's not a huge difference.
Anyway, dig into this idea at all and you will brush up against fear. In many ways fear is a constant part of any warrior society. It's a very obvious fear though. There is nothing subtle about it. Fear of death, fear of injury. These are things anyone can relate to, what become fascinating is how individuals move past those fears.
I think what I like so much about these stories of overcoming fear is that the fear is so obvious and confrontational. The fears in most of our lives are neither as extreme nor as obvious, which in a paradoxical way makes them almost harder to recognize and deal with.
There are many kinds of fear. There's the one you probably thought of when you first read the word a sentences back: fear as in something is going to get you. There are other sorts of fear though and the one I've been thinking about lately is the kind of fear you have when you get married. Or at least you might have had. I did anyway.
If you've ever been married you probably recall a certain amount of anxiety, fear, about getting married. Not that you're scared of marriage, or scared of your partner, or the commitment (if you had any of those fears I sincerely hope you didn't get married). The fear I'm thinking of stems I think from the fact that this thing -- this case marriage -- means a lot to you, it's this very important thing, and you want it work out the way you have it in your head, but you're afraid too -- what if it doesn't work out that way?
This is the kind of fear that I think subtly grabs us and pulls us around in all sort of ways. I know it does me. I can sit around for months rationalizing all sorts of inaction, dodging that underlying fear, which usually boils down to: oh crap, what if this doesn't work out the way I want?
God forbid you take this question to the internet because there are seemingly millions out there waiting to browbeat you for your inaction, to belittle your fear and tell you to get over it by just doing it. But what few, if any of these people do is help you answer that questions, what if it doesn't work out?
Like if full of decisions that may not work out. That plan to quit your job and travel the world working in dive shops or building websites? It might work. It also might not. And you'd be wise to spend some time at least considerng the latter and planning around it.
That whole travel in a 1969 RV? There are some ways in which that might not work out. They range from the frustrating, finding yourself at the side of the road, unable to move a 12 ton hunk of steel and fiberglass, to the potentially fatal, finding yourself unable to stop a 12 ton hunk of metal and steel. I've had both happen to me. So far I am still here to tell the tale, but who knows? It's a fear I have. It's fear that's kept me from doing what I've wanted to do a number of times. Glance through our travels, see how many mountains we've climbed?
There's a book I really dislike that nevertheless has one bit of wisdom in it that I do like: "the more we're scared of something, the more we know we have to do it." There's an element of the cheesy, "face your fears" nonsense in that, but there's also something more subtle there if you consider it as speaking to that other sort of fear: that fear of what if it doesn't go the way I want?
The answer is, it doesn't matter how it goes, if you're scared that it might go wrong the lession to take away is that this thing, getting married, traveling the world, driving a vintage RV, whatever it may be, is important to you. And if it's important to you, you need to follow it. You need to see where it goes. That doesn't mean it won't end badly. It just means you have follow it.
I'm not telling you to chuck caution to the wind. I'm not suggesting you risk everything just because you're scared of the outcome. But you know those things, those things you're afraid of, but they just won't go away. You do have grab them, you have to direct your will toward them and see where it goes.
|
