I’m definitely not going to be able to cover everything that I’d like to cover about fear in a single article, so this may be one of many to come on the topic. There, that takes the pressure off; I no longer have to dread writing this piece.
It was actually during one of those lazy afternoons, on a break at my mom’s, watching Netflix - or more like binging it - that this question was prompted and I was compelled to bring it up here. There’s a series called The Order. Yeah, werewolves and witches in college. But entertaining enough to pass the time, nonetheless. At least if you’re a sucker for anything related to witches or werewolves or both. And one of the episodes that amused me the most posed this question.
Something happened to make various characters completely and absolutely drop their fears, even their most pervasive ones, ones that seemed ingrained in their personalities, so we got to see them being “uncharacteristically” themselves. Now, as someone who also writes characters, I found this to be a clever and fun exercise. How would my characters act if they had no fears? But then, also, how would I act if I had no fear?
This goes into a more important matter: How is fear holding us back?
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| The Order (2019-) |
Fear is a natural response in humans (as well as in other creatures). It is meant to keep us from harm, to ensure our survival. And a lot of the time, it successfully works like that. However, we’re not so sophisticated as an organism for fear to function perfectly. It’s an alarm that comes with your body to warn you about potential risks and dangers. But how well it calculates that... depends. It depends on your data and your programming, on what definitions you’ve set or allowed in your code.
Normally, if there are no reasons to be scared and you know that for certain, whether because you’re prepared and able to handle whatever is coming or because nothing of real concern to you is coming, you won’t experience much, if any, fear. However, an absence of fear is not necessarily an indication that a situation is safe. If there are no recognizable signs to point to you that it’s not, it won’t sound your alarm. This is why, sometimes, what may appear to be bravery, may simply be ignorance. And what may appear to be cowardice, may instead be wisdom. The problem is, though, that we like to consider cowardly people wise and brave people ignorant even when that’s not exactly (or entirely) the case. Alternatively, apathy, along with ignorance, can mess with your ability to sense or be alarmed.
Again, fear is basically an alarm, not an all-knowing message sent from above to save you from your doom. It’s not to be ignored, but it must be examined to tell whether it's unfounded or not, or whether you should configure your alarm system to account for certain variables and/or to better serve its purpose. It’s not uncommon to suffer from excessive fear. Quite irrationally, too. So, maybe toning it down when it comes to certain things will be helpful.
Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of imperfection… These are common fears that most of us share or have experienced at one point or another, for these things do hurt, but we generally recover.
On The Order, we got an example of this with Alyssa and how dropping her fear of not meeting others’ expectations made her. She stopped being a goody-two-shoes, obsessing about doing everything as perfectly as she could, and holding her tongue. Instead, she started speaking out without any filter. And boy, was that relieving and comical to watch? It was. She did return to a more “normal” state eventually, but this time without the crippling anxiety and with more of a backbone.
Something that can help you get past your fears is asking yourself what do you have to lose and what do you have to gain. Too often, we stop at the mere possibility of losing something and ignore everything else that we could gain in exchange by trying.
You may have noticed that the most fearless people are not necessarily brave or courageous, but simply do not have anything to lose that they care about. Whereas, in contrast, any person can be made pale with fear if something they deeply and greatly value and treasure is threatened. It may be their own life or something else. Ultimately, it boils down to what you could lose and how important that is to you.
Nevertheless, there are cases in which we may be misguided and holding on too tightly to something that we’re better off or could do without while neglecting where taking a chance could lead us.
So, what’s on the other side of fear for you?