Fear follows me almost every day of my life. I’ve read book after book about it, and I have practiced several different methods to conquer it. So how do you get over fear? This is the big secret. Ready?
You don’t. You never get over it. It’s always there no matter what you do. Some people advise that you get comfortable with fear. That’s a bunch of horseshit. You don’t get comfortable with it. You don’t magically turn it into fuel or find the meaning in it or anything else. Fear sucks and it always sucks. There is no way I have found to solve the problem of fear. I’ve tried it all—meditation, affirmations, medication, fear extinction, visualization, exposure and response prevention, etc. Many of these things work well to dampen the fear. They can even help you reduce the fear of certain situations. They make it tolerable. Focusing on your breath can lower your heart rate and quiet the voices of doubt. Visualization can make you feel more confident in uncertain situations. Exposure and response prevention can acclimate you to environments you previously avoided. You can learn to get comfortable with heights, with dating, with public speaking. You can get so good that you can conquer stage fright or even worse things like intense agoraphobia. But fear itself? The feeling? It will never go away. It is always there, and it will always suck. But keep facing fear and you can carve out a better life for yourself. You can be a more productive person. You can date attractive people, climb to new heights (literally), make more money, perform better in sports or music. You will still be afraid. All the time. And you should be.
Your obstacle is not fear but avoidance. And the answer is to move slowly, ever so slowly toward the things you’re afraid of. The work can seem overwhelming. And when the going gets hard, it can be tempting to settle for what you have. That’s where you’re wrong. For there is another kind of fear waiting for you and it is worse than the sharp, gut-wrenching fear that ignites our fight or flight system, more troublesome than the nagging discomfort of recurrent anxiety. You may not even know it’s there at first. Yet, over time, it builds and builds until it takes over your life.
I’m speaking of the haunting fear that comes to you at night when you start to age and you look back at all the missed opportunities. This is the deep soul-sucking fear of death, but not just any death—a meaningless, loveless, purposeless death. Or maybe it is better expressed as the moment before death, the moment you look back at your life and realize that you don’t have any chances left, that there is no time left to procrastinate.
I don’t have nightmares about falling off rock faces or getting embarrassed in front of crowds. I have nightmares about looking back at my life and realizing I only lived up to half my potential. In my dreams, I see every one of my missed opportunities and they hurt more than any public rejection or broken bone and in these horrible dreams I wonder why I never stuck it out. Why didn’t I just go for it? I ask myself. Why didn’t I make it work? Why did I choose a life of mediocrity?
The things that we want are so close to us. We only need to apply ourselves and make them happen. A loving relationship could be only one conversation away. A new job could be on the other side of that interview you are scared shitless about. The business you want to start could be on the other side of that loan you’re not sure you can afford.
I’ve taken the easy way out a million and one times. I’ve chickened out, backed down, copped out, broken my word. Each time It was like snapping of a small part of me. A small part of who I could have been and what I could have done. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not despairing here. I’m still young enough and there will be other opportunities. And I am never one to worry about quitting a job or breaking off a relationship if I don’t care to put in the effort. I only care about not being in control of these things, of not finding out what could have happened. When I avoid my fears, it is like shutting the page on a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story. Maybe things would have turned out badly. But wouldn’t it have been better to find out?
The nightmares motivate me to keep trying. They are what keep me going even when things get bad (and believe me they can get pretty damn bad). I am not perfect. I still have obsessive-compulsive disorder (as much as I like to tell myself I’ve mastered it). I am still terrified of heights. I still make excuses not to talk to women I like. Sometimes I don’t express myself fully in my writing. Sometimes I don’t ask the questions I really want to ask. But while I don’t always make the heroic choice, I still take small steps towards the things I’m terrified of. And I have seen the world open for me because of this. Learning to withstand fear has enhanced my relationships, romantic and otherwise. It has increased my opportunities for movement, expression, and professional growth. I traveled through seven countries in Europe alone with my backpack. I could have never done this if I had stayed a slave to my fear. I quit my serving job and moved to New Mexico with no plan. I never would have done this if I had stayed a slave to my fear. I interviewed with confidence for a first-year teaching position and got it. I could have never done this if I had stayed a slave to my fear.
So no, fear never goes away entirely. That horrible sensation in your gut? Those racing thoughts? The nausea so bad that you might puke? That is the price of living a true and honorable life. You don’t need to master the feelings. You only need to withstand them long enough to get to the other side of them.
Good Luck.
