Fear

For nine months, I’ve stayed silent. Fear kept me from writing—fear of judgement, loss, and failure. Toady, as a new year begins, I am breaking that silence. In this letter I describe how these fears manifest into my life and share how I intend to overcome them.

The Fear of Being Judged

The fear of judgement is a very natural but crippling fear; we all want to be accepted by others, it’s in our DNA. Our ancestors lives depended on being accepted by others; to be ostracised from the tribe meant exposure to the elements, a lack of access to resources, and a risk of predation; all of which most likely would lead to death. In order to protect us from these life-threatening consequences our brains developed the capacity to monitor social cues and play out potential scenarios to alert us as to then our actions may be judged negatively and could potentially lead to us not being accepted.

In our modern age, the consequences of not being accepted or not fitting the status quo are a lot less significant than what our ancestors faced, yet to our ancient brains it is just as terrifying. It can feel overwhelmingly risky to do something that may lead to someone forming a judgement about you. 

I can feel it, as I write these words, I have a back and forth within—asking myself questions like: “who would want to read what you have to say?”, “so many people have written this in the past, what’s the point in your writing this?”, “aren’t you a bit old to be trying something new?” I can think of many ways to respond to these questions yet it does not take away the underlying feeling of fear and uncertainty that I have.

The Fear of Loss

Loss is a part of life, all things follow a cycle of birth and death, one day they are here, the next they are not. Whenever we attach to things we open ourselves up to losing that thing and that can feel scary. Many of us attach to things that we ultimately have no control over and as a result we suffer. 

This fear manifests in a particular way for me, and it’s to do with a loss of privacy. I have a general uneasiness about Big Tech, the algorithms, and AI that is probably driven by sci-fi stories such as George Orwell’s 1984, or by browsing through the r/Privacy community on Reddit. I fear that in putting myself out there I am potentially putting myself at risk of embarrassment, risk of manipulation, or even, more extreme, a loss of freedom. While there are genuine risks to putting yourself out there, I think the biggest risk is getting to the end of life and asking “what if?”

The Fear of Failure

Similar to the fear of being judged, the fear of failure is another one that is influenced by other people—“what are people going to think if I don’t follow through or I don’t succeed?” It’s also about self-esteem, the fear of failing may hold me back from trying something new because when I have failed in the past it hurts, it makes you question yourself, whether you are really capable.

The last time I wrote a letter was to share my success of completing my discipline challenge: “Ghost Mode”, shortly after writing that letter I slipped back into bad habits and stopped living with intention, I resumed wallowing in comfort. I had essentially failed, as Ghost Mode was meant to be a transformational challenge that once I had done was going to lead to great things but when it didn’t quite go to plan, I shutdown and didn’t share my failure because of the feeling of being judged or potentially failing again.

Finding Courage in Fear

Fear ultimately is a worry about a future event that may or may not occur, it never exists in the present moment, it is always a projection into the future. It is at the root many uncomfortable feelings in life and is something that I believe can be overcome or at least managed.

The one true blessing in life is the fact that we all die. On the day that we die, everything is released—all of the attachments, the wants, the fears, they all dissolve into nothing. The knowledge that ultimately none of this matters in the grand scheme of the Universe is freeing and creates the space to try things and not worry about it too much. That is true liberation. Memento mori, as the stoics say, which can be loosely translated as “remember you will die” is a powerful reminder to live for the present moment.

Remembering that you will die can help bring into focus the question: “what are we here for?” An answer to such a pertinent question is unique to every single person in the world. For me, it’s sharing my light with others and having a positive impact on the world; even if it is minuscule I want the world to be a better place because I was here.

To conclude this post I am making a commitment to be courageous, to listen to my heart and not let fear hold me back from doing what I want to do. I will share one letter each month, embracing vulnerability as part of my journey. One day I will die but until then I want to go on a big adventure, the adventure of my life.