I’m not usually one for sensationalism or these flashy challenges, but I’ve got a problem.
You may remember my old post about fighting fears a while back. (If you don’t, you can read it here. I still think it’s a nice piece.) If you don’t remember or don’t want to go back and read, it’s a piece that talks about my fear of learning to drive. Quite a bit of time has passed since then and it’s given me some time to think.
The problem is fear
As I said, I have a problem. The lovely part about my old post was that it was so direct. It had a definite start, topic, problem, solution, end, and message. I think it wrapped up rather nicely, actually. But the thing is, all I did in that article was have a brush with what it means to face your fears, which inspired me, no doubt. It gave me an interesting new perspective to contemplate. The thing it didn’t do was inspire lasting change, though. I still haven’t gotten my driver’s license.
And it’s not just about driving, it’s much bigger. The fact is, ever since I can remember, I’ve let my fears shape my life. They shaped my identity, my life path, my actions, my hobbies, everything. I can’t properly articulate how much I’ve let my life be ruled by my fears, but I suspect if this resonates with you, you may have some idea.
I never considered myself to be a very scared person. In fact, I often thought of myself as brave. I mean, if life was so scary and I chose to keep moving forward, then surely that was brave, right? But now that I really look at it, I don’t think I’ve always been “moving forward”. I’ve been letting my fears stand wherever they want, and if that was in front of me, I would walk around them instead of through. I never thought of it as a problem, just creative I guess.
The Challenge
But I’m fed up with it now. I don’t want to live this way anymore–moving on, but avoiding my fears. I’m not sure when this notion sparked up in my head, but it’s been brewing for the past few days. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t miss out on my life, hiding away in fear. I’ll sleep on all the things I want to do. I don’t want to live a life parallel to my interests.” And this mental snowballing has led me to a strange idea. A resolute idea.
I’ve undergone a series of exercises already for the past couple days, so unfortunately, you’re not catching this at the very beginning. But basically, the structure of this challenge is as follows: while I go about my day, if I find myself acting (or not acting, as the case may be) out of fear, I will make myself go and face that fear. Whenever they come up. And believe me, they’ve been coming up.
Now, I have my own stipulations. Like, I believe that some fears are healthy and justified. So in this challenge I’m not going to be overcoming my fear of poisonous snakes or anything like that. But a lot of my fears are baseless, and I suspect the same goes for a lot of people. The fears that are baseless (or really unlikely to result in that dreaded worst case scenario), I’m attacking. Finally.
What do you think?
I will be giving you guys updates, although not every day. I will be writing pieces on this topic intermittently, for as long as I feel they are still interesting and relevant. And as for timelines, I’m not sure how long the challenge aspect of this will last. I’m hoping to get to the point where fear, as a construct, doesn’t run my life or loom large in it. I expect this may take a while, but as I have more and more revelations about the topic, I promise to share. Wish me luck! And let me know in the comments beneath here, what is your relationship with fear like? Does it run your life or do you view it as a challenge?
(You don’t have to wait on the next post about this anymore! To continue in this journey, click here!)
