As a new academic year dawns upon us, I thought I would take a break from politics and write instead about a positive message that we all need to hear on occasion. It is about fear of achievement. Fear of realizing one’s potential has been the subject matter of many self-help books. In their discussion of fear, writers often associate fear with animosity as in “face your fear,” “break your fear,” “conquer your fear,” “defeat your fear,” and so forth. I write this, so daringly, to repudiate the idea of that association, and suggest instead that you create a different mental image of fear. How about … love your fear?
The problem with conceiving of fear as an enemy is that it misleads you into thinking that there are only two scenarios at hand: either fear breaks you, or you it. While this perception is partially true, it creates the illusion of a once-and-for-all “boxing round” between you and fear. The bell will ring, leaving you victorious or defeated, and then the fighting will cease. Ain’t gonna happen! There never comes a point when you become completely fearless. To put it in another way, fear is here to stay. You’d better learn how to coexist with it, not break it.
Imagine how it would be if you had a constant enemy haunting you everywhere you go. You would always be under the stress of dodging attacks, and fighting them back. That is the same stress of continuing to experience fear as a bitter foe. It will beat you to the ground. So I suggest instead that you make peace with your fear. Seek to understand it rather than dominate it. Get it. Give it a character, a human character. Become its friend. Have a dialogue with it, sort things out with it. You will be surprised how fast friendship can grow between the two of you. I will even go so radically far as to suggest that you give it not only a human character, but also a human gender. Not any gender, but the gender you feel attracted to. Date it. Get to know one another well, and when you fall in love with it, go to the next level, and propose to it. Marry it, marry your fear!
Isn’t it interesting how nervous we feel before going on the first date, and the second, and the third? And when you are about to marry your fiancé, aren’t you scared of commitment? And after marriage, do arguments ever end between you and your wife/husband? Do you ever stop worrying if you are meeting your life partner’s expectations? Do you ever stop wondering if you still make her/him just as proud as ever? Does the fear of losing face in her/his presence ever leave you? No! Yet people still date. Couples still marry, because, after all, we know it is a beautiful bond worth having, don’t we? A bond that yields a family to belong to, love to water and memories to cherish. You can choose to develop a love bond like that of marriage with your fear. This bond, like the marriage bond, has its inevitable anxieties and insecurities as part of the package, but it always can lead us to great inspirations and achievements if we let it.
So get out of your comfort zone right now and make love to your fear! Feel the harmony between the both of you. Do something you’re absolutely scared to do. Gain some muscles. Learn a foreign language. Do a presentation. Sing. Take an acting class. Read a difficult book. Dare to dream. Ask a girl out. Approach the dance floor. Dance! Get inspired by your favorite music as it reaches the crescendo. Trade the security of the familiar for the orgasm of a wild experience. Go bungee jumping or skydiving. Travel. And most importantly, love!
And here I come to my destination: You can never break your fear and live “fearlessly” ever after, but you can embrace it and live “happily” ever after.
Have a good morning, everybody!
