Most people know how it feels to abandon an opportunity because of fear. They know the shame that comes in the aftermath of that choice. They wish they could have been a little stronger or a little more courageous. Sometimes it’s okay to choose the easier and safer path. We can’t always make the brave choice. But if we keep giving into our fear, we begin to feel like a passive observer of our lives, unable to initiate the change we want to see in ourselves, our family, or our community. You can find your way out of this trap by learning to work with fear, learning to slow down and evaluate your mindset regarding effort and opportunity.
Fear dominated my life for as long as I could remember. I hid it well though. If you had met me in my late teens or early twenties, you would have likely thought of me as a rather eccentric young man who was passionate about art. But behind the curtains, things were not going well. I lived in constant terror of losing my mind to a barrage of intrusive thoughts. My anxiety got so bad that I suffered searing migraines and developed canker sores. I could barely concentrate on my schoolwork, and I often missed classes and was late to my job. I avoided social gatherings altogether and would panic when an attractive girl looked in my direction let alone talked to me. I suffered most of this in silence. I didn’t like to speak of my social anxiety but my secrecy about my OCD was even more intense. I felt if I told anyone about my intrusive thoughts, they would think of me as a creep or a monster. I went to therapist after therapist and yet I never made progress because I refused to tell them what was going on in my head. One by one, my lofty dreams slipped through my fingers, and I found myself living a miserable existence far different than the one I had imagined for myself. During the interminable years of high school, I had dreamt of traveling the world like Jack London and having adventures like Chris McCandless from Into the Wild. I wanted to be a great film director like Stanley Kubrick and study philosophy with the fervor of Nietzsche. I had wanted to write for my college paper, network with my professors, and volunteer on film projects. I wanted to date the beautiful women I met in class or chat about film theory and poetry with my fellow art students. And yet whenever I resolved to pursue a goal, I’d end up coming face to face with my fear and find myself lacking in the ability to cope. I couldn’t face the social commitment involved in group work. I had panic attacks when I tried to talk to girls I liked. I found myself obsessing over intrusive thoughts whenever I thought about changing jobs or traveling. And then there was the learning aspect itself. I had discovered that all my ‘lofty’ fantasies required commitment, training, and, most of all, patience. Again and again, I came up against these barriers and I had no tools to help me overcome them. I saw each obstacle as a definitive sign that I was not meant to progress. “That’s just my luck,” I’d think. “I’m a born loser. I wasn’t meant to have this.” Each time I came across a barrier or experienced an overwhelming emotion I would simply quit trying. I would head back to the warm embrace of my lonely and painful life. I would commit to a safer path, one that didn’t require that I face my fears or experience discomfort. What I didn’t know was that each time I backed down I strengthened that little voice inside of me that told me I was a weak person. In time that voice grew louder and louder until I stopped confronting my fears at all. The result was that my world got smaller and the fear, instead of lessening, mushroomed into the dominant fixation of my existence.
In psychological terms, we call this state “learned depression.” You stop trying for you no longer believe you have the power to adapt to your environment. You lie down, put your tail between your legs, and brace for the next shock or the next twinge of regret. One of the worst things about this state is what it can do to a person. I was jealous, bitter, and confrontational. I felt the need to show off around my classmates and coworkers, to let them know I wasn’t just a failure. I bragged about my limited knowledge of literature and film, and I refused to take part in any challenge that would expose my weaker sides. Since I was terrified of group work, I never invested in learning how to operate cameras as a film student. I spent my time alone in the libraries reading about film theory and art theory, but I felt powerless to put it into practice. Film is mostly a collaborative medium and I couldn’t collaborate. All around me my classmates had started to progress. They created relationships with their professors. They dated wonderful people and worked together to create amazing films. They had started to make their mark on the world and reach for the things that would make them unique. I hated them for their success for I felt like a hamster on a wheel running in circles as they blazed past me and left me choking on their dust. I told myself that they didn’t deserve what they had, that they hadn’t had to face the obstacles I faced. I made excuses for why I couldn’t keep up with them, why I was a broken thing that couldn’t be fixed. I didn’t have their money. I didn’t have their happiness, their confidence, or their level of support. This hatred and jealousy only served to isolate me further. I had built a monument to my suffering, and I was constantly polishing that monument, reminding myself of why I couldn’t move forward, how I was so broken and abused and neglected by the world. People sympathized with me. They told me that I had it hard, that life hadn’t been fair to me, that I didn’t have the opportunity others did. Their sympathy and justification dampened the burden of my shame, but it never helped me change my life. Sympathy and justification aren’t the tools of progress. They only stop you from taking an honest look yourself.
Now, it would be easy to paint an all-around black picture of my life just to tell you how I overcame everything and soared to success. But things aren’t that simple. My life wasn’t all bad. I made progress in a fashion. I managed to finish college, although not in the degree that I wanted. I dated a couple of women despite my social anxiety and finished a few student films. I worked my way up to a lead broiler cook in the upscale steakhouse where I worked. But to me, nothing was ever good enough. I disregarded any signs of progress. If I had allowed myself to look at these small successes, to really see them, then I would have noticed I was slowly getting better. I was changing in important ways and if I had translated my methods to other areas of my life, I would have found ways to advance toward the difficult goals that I really wanted to achieve. Since I couldn’t accept my progress, I was unable to see what was helping me succeed and what was holding me back. For it wasn’t fear itself that was getting in my way. It was my mindset towards fear. It was the opinions I had about progress and achievement.
Let’s transition to an analogy here. Let’s pretend that I am Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. My plane has crashed in the middle of the ocean, and I have washed up on Fear Island. There is no one around to help me. There are no restaurants to cook for me. When it rains, I can’t dip into my apartment for an umbrella. I have to find a way to use the tools around me to fulfill my needs. In the movie, Fed Ex boxes from the plane wreck wash up on the shore of Tom Hank’s Island. He opens the boxes and finds ways to use the random items in a fashion that is entirely foreign to the item’s original purpose. He makes rope out of videotape, he creates a friend out of a volleyball, and when a dead pilot washes up on shore, Tom takes the man’s shoes and cuts off the tops so they’ll fit his feet. These tools aren’t perfect but they’re all Tom has to use. Now let’s consider Jeff on the island of fear. Jeff is sitting there, slowly starving, as he waits for someone to come rescue him. Fed Ex boxes wash up on shore and Jeff shifts through them. “Videotape?” Jeff says. “Useless.” “A volleyball?” “Useless.” Jeff sits back down on the beach and waits and waits for someone to come save him. Jeff could wait forever but no one is going to find him on Fear Island. They don’t know how to get there. It’s off the map. And if Jeff keeps waiting, he will eventually starve to death.
Part of getting better with any mental health disorder is learning to see your world from a different perspective. Steven Hays, the founder of ACT therapy, speaks about the value of perspective in reconsidering your experience of your past. One of the exercises he outlines in his book A Liberated Mind, asks the reader to write about a past event. Then he asks the reader to write about the same event a second time, only this time he asks you to change the meaning of the event. Keep all the facts the same but change the outcome, change the feelings associated. When you do this exercise, you uncover the stories that you have been telling yourself about your life. You begin to see that these stories aren’t reality, that there is a different way to think about your past. And if you can do this with the past you can do it with the present too. With a change of perspective and a change of approach, videotape can become rope and a volleyball can become a confidant. Instead of looking around you and seeing that you have no options, you can start to use the tools at hand to create a better life.
I did this without realizing it. Often, I made changes because I needed to, and just as often I hated the outcome. I’d often look for new resources—new friends, new relationships, new jobs—without first thinking of how I could develop with the things that were around me. Recently, my sister moved out of town. I had been rooming with her for two years and was nervous about the thought of being alone again. I worried I would succumb to that negative headspace where I so desperately wanted to connect but was unable to push myself to go to a social gathering. Now I had been working on social anxiety, but it was slow going and I knew with my sister leaving that I would be alone in my apartment without the daily companionship that I had enjoyed. I told myself that I would just have to adjust to the pain of loneliness. Part of that is true, I would have to face living in my apartment without someone to talk to in the evenings. But was it true that I had to be completely alone? I suddenly thought of the friends that I hadn’t called in half a year. I thought of the guy I used to go gravel biking with. I thought of my coworkers, who I always turned down when they asked me to go out for drinks. I thought of the meetup groups that I had enjoyed in the past. I thought of the fact that I could call my siblings at any time. I had options. I just hadn’t been using them.
I see countless people around me making the same mistakes. Again and again, I hear the same complaints about the unfairness of the world, the general lack of opportunity. Think to yourself, you probably know that person at your job who hates being there and at every opportunity, they feel the need to remind you how the job is beneath them, that they were destined for something greater. They complain about the company, and their boss, and the work culture. They complain that they aren’t recognized and are passed up for promotions. They may have opinions about unfair treatment or are protective of their skillset, always feeling the need to prove that they are better than everyone around them. I was one of these people and it got me nowhere. If we consider our employers evil and disregard the opportunities that work can provide, we do ourselves a disservice. Your job is a tool. It might be an imperfect tool, but it is a tool nonetheless. And if you learn how to use that tool, if you progress wherever possible, if you speak up and take ownership, if you try to change the things you think are outdated and wrong, you may be able to turn that imperfect tool into a rather trusty addition to your tool belt. This doesn’t mean we should stay in jobs we hate or suffer abuse from an employer. None of this is an all-or-nothing scenario. Part of recovery is learning to take the reins of your own life and decide for yourself what works and what doesn’t. But I do believe that living a better life means taking an honest look at your attitude toward work as well as learning, relationships, and the myriad other things that are at play. How can you use the things around you to help you progress? What are you able to change? What relationships can you develop? If you are too ashamed to invest effort in your job, if you are too proud to ask for advice or admit you don’t understand something then you will find yourself unable to use the opportunities in front of you.
Three years ago, I was working at a ski resort and desperately searching for new jobs. After taking the advice of many job-search books, I decided that I’d have to do some serious networking. Of course, being obsessive like I am, I followed one particular book’s advice to the letter. In the book, I was told to only speak for 15 minutes, to only reach out to alumni, and to use a rather stilted questioning prompt. I researched the company I wanted to apply for and emailed the marketing director asking for an informational interview. I flattered him about his blog and his website and asked boring questions about what books he read. When I asked him what I could do to get started in marketing (hoping that he would then offer me a job at his company) the guy asked me where I was working. I told him I was selling tickets at a ski resort. He suggested that I locate the marketing team at the ski resort and ask them if I could volunteer my time. He told me to start posting and making content for them and see if I could eventually transfer to their department. I thanked him with a halfhearted smile and told him I would let him know how his plan worked. The interview ended and I considered the experience a failure. I had wanted a job but instead, the man gave me plain old advice. I went on to email the next contact and then the one after that. I never did end up getting an offer.
It seemed that his advice was specific to that time in my life, to that one scenario. It was only later that I saw the broader implications of what he said. He was saying that change and opportunity were a lot closer than I thought but that I had to put in the work. I had to show effort, to acquire expertise. I didn’t need to reach out to a stranger on the other side of the country to find a job. There were opportunities for learning and advancement in my community. I just had to take the initiative. This man was telling me to do the work, the hard work of cultivating the relationships with the people around me, of developing my skill set and using the tools already at my disposal. It would take me almost two years until I accepted the wisdom of his advice.
Change is slow. Maddeningly slow. A lot of people don’t see the benefits of their efforts right away, so they give up. Or they falter in their resolve, and they tell themselves they don’t have what it takes. I’ve seen it happen again and again with my friends and relatives. I’ve seen it happen with myself. People set ambitious goals. They plan on losing weight, going back to school, changing careers, writing books. They seem excited at first, but they quickly lose heart and soon they stop discussing the proposed change, and what was once excitement turns to shame. Bring up the subject of their goals and they give a guilty smile and provide a litany of excuses as to why it didn’t work out. Why do they give up? Why don’t they keep going? There are several reasons, but I think the biggest issue is that they expect too much of themselves. They expect to create a goal and then form a habit overnight. But habits are notoriously difficult to form. They can take weeks, months or even years to fall into place. And over those weeks and months, you are going to have doubts, you are going to backtrack, and you are going to give up time and time again only to recommit. Most people do everything they can to hold themselves accountable, resisting every urge, every doubt for as long as possible. Then the first time their resolve slips they shame themselves. And when they shame themselves, they fall hard. They miss the gym and instead of recommitting to go the next day, they buy two bags of Funyuns and a six-pack of beer, then lay down on the couch to play Call of Duty: Zombies all night. The next day they beat themselves up internally and call themselves a loser. They think that they have failed just because they slipped up. The thought of going back to the gym is now coupled with the fear of experiencing the same lack of resolve and the same mental anguish that accompanies shame. They decide that it is easier not to try, that way they won’t have to experience the same rollercoaster of emotion.
I did this time and time again. I’d commit to exercising only to give up. I’d try to form a habit of writing only to declare that it was too hard and “I didn’t want to do it anyway.” I’d start and stop tasks repeatedly, sometimes with months between each new session of motivation. It was as if I needed the time to forget about the shame of giving up and the uncomfortable sensation of forming a new habit. And yet I no longer count these sessions of trying and failing as useless. Even when I tried and gave up, even when there were months between each session of attempted change, I was still inching closer to my goal. When I started getting into exercise it took me over a year before I could run two miles without having to stop. Often the changes looked like this. I would get tired of being an alcoholic, and smoking cigarettes, and being lazy and I would resolve to change. “This time is different,” I’d tell myself. Then I’d head out on a run, coughing and wheezing my way through it. I’d do some pushups and sit-ups and I’d mostly feel ashamed of how out of shape I was and embarrassed about my lack of progress. I might head out one or two more times and then all of a sudden, I’d lose motivation. I’d decide running wasn’t for me, that I was fine being an out-of-shape smoker and I’d go to the bar instead. Now during these early days of intermittent motivation and giving up, I never felt as if I was going anywhere. I was confused about what I wanted and mostly ashamed of my lack of progress. And yet I was moving forward. My path just wasn’t anywhere near straight. It looped around on itself many times and sometimes it dead-ended and sometimes I even got lost and had to backtrack. But I was still advancing.
When many people talk about progress or change, they like to speak about the one moment, the one decision or event that made them reconsider their entire lives and finally commit to taking the actions they had been avoiding. I think these people often get it wrong. Change is never about one moment or one decision. Change is about a thousand small decisions. There may have been one moment that was the jumping-off point, but I doubt that any decision is ever made in complete isolation. Our decisions to change are due to thousands of influences that impacted us over a lifetime. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to run ultramarathons because I was fat. My decision to do ultrarunning was due to a collection of interests and training. I had started hiking 14ers two years prior and I had run off and on to lose weight. Without that background, I would have never turned towards ultrarunning. If I had grown up in the city and had never been hiking, I doubt if I could have run trails and scrambled up class 4 routes to mountain summits. If I hadn’t already been doing some running, I would have never thought 50 miles was possible, and if my brother hadn’t been there to egg me on, I never would have had the companionship and accountability that aided in the achievement of that goal.
I say all of this to reinforce the central tenet of change. Change is slow and hard, and it won’t happen all at once. Ever. I hope you prove me wrong. I hope you can pull off some herculean feat and lose 100 pounds in three months like David Goggins. I hope that you will wake up one day and decide to quit your job and move across the country without any planning and make the life you want. But in my experience these things take time, and they are anything but romantic. Often, we idolize the people who achieved remarkable feats. We want to emulate those success stories. We want to be brave like they were and gritty like they were. But those are just stories. It is easy to look at the past and create a narrative that sounds like truth, but conveniently skirts around the uncomfortable and ugly parts of success. The self-proclaimed badasses and war heroes and adventurers will tell you all about how they triumphed over their issues, but what you often don’t hear about is the many failures, doubts, and insecurities, the years of mediocrity and shame. You don’t hear about the times they gave up, and the opportunities they turned down, or the moments they were frozen in fear. When you read a heroic story of change you can’t feel the weight of the years passing, the way time crawls so slowly, and how in the moment, everything feels like it is in stasis, and nothing is happening. If you condense a life into a book, the arc of change occurs in a few hours. If you condense it into a movie, it occurs in an hour and a half. We would all change if we could only do it in an hour and a half. But we can’t. No one can. All we can do is inch closer, day by day to the life we really want. We may think we are making headway when we write our goal on our whiteboard or tell our friends about the grand idea we’ve had. But that is only a far-off dream. What matters is what we are doing in the moment, the decision we make of whether to get up early and look for a job or sleep for another hour, the decision of whether to smile at the cute stranger or eat the grapefruit instead of the donut or read a book rather than veg out in front of the T.V.
Let’s head back to Fear Island one last time before the end. Jeff is still alone and afraid, but he has finally accepted that no boat is coming to save him. The next time a box washes up on shore he pulls it onto the sand and peers inside. It is a bottle of wine. The seal has broken, and the wine is spoiled. Jeff despairs for a moment. “This is useless,” he thinks. “I can’t drink this!” But instead of throwing the box back into the ocean, he sets it down next to him. After a moment, he has an idea. He carefully taps the bottle against a rock and breaks off a large chunk of glass. It is sharp enough to cut with, so he uses it to cut strips out of his old sweater. He wraps the pieces of cloth around his feet to protect against the sharp stones that line the beach. He cuts more strips out of an old tarp and fashions the shard of glass to a long stick. He now has a spear to help him catch fish.
Let’s leave Jeff here for now. He is still out there on Fear Island and is currently learning how to spear fish. (He’s falling in the water a lot right now. He still hasn’t got the hang of it.) He has a long way to go but he has made the first big pivot. He has accepted his reality and decided to work with his surroundings. Slowly he has started to change his habitat, building a shelter out of old logs, creating fire from the bark of palm trees. He is teaching himself how to survive, just like old Tom Hanks. Someday Jeff may even build himself a raft. We’ll just have to wait and see.
