Fearing the Future

The irrational nature of worry

The Folly of Fear — Photo by Francisco Goya — https://commons.wikimedia.org

People get off on being scared. They watch horror movies to be terrified. They ride roller coasters and tell ghost stories. They read Stephen King.

But that’s controlled fear. You’re scared in the moment by the actions of the characters, the dramatic effect of the music or lighting, or the 140 ft. drop. You’re at the edge of your seat. It’s exhilarating.

Then there is the fear we deal with most often: worry. We obsess about the future, factoring in far too many variables for us not to short-circuit. We consider what will happen in a day, a week, or ten years. What if things go bad? What will we do?

There are so many ways life can go right or wrong that covering all the bases is impossible. Sometimes our minds go straight to the worst outcome imaginable. We work ourselves up before anything has happened.

I’ve been training in martial arts for more than half my life, and few things have brought fear out of me more than competition. The days before a tournament would work my nerves into a frenzy. I’d get butterflies and heart palpitations when I thought about the matches. What if I lost? What if I were embarrassed? What would people think of me? Would my students abandon me? Am I a fraud?

There’s also the prospect of being injured in competition. That’s something that’s in the back of your mind. Self-preservation is a top human priority, so putting yourself in harm’s way isn’t natural. You feel like your life is at risk. You fear annihilation.

Of course, your rational mind knows it’s just a game. There’s a point system, a referee and even medics in case anything goes wrong. You’re in a controlled environment. The likelihood of dying at a jiu jitsu competition is probably no different than if you were just walking down the street in a big city.

But rationality goes out the window when you’re defensive. You just want to protect yourself. Your prefrontal cortex tamps down, and your reptile brain takes over. You’re reacting to perceived threat instead of responding to the reality of the situation.

Our feelings can get lost in translation. The sensations we experience can be interpreted in different ways, depending on our attitude. The butterflies and increased heart rate of excitement might be viewed as fear by someone with little experience being uncomfortable. Someone who hasn’t competed much and hasn’t put themselves in tough situations hasn’t become friends with the physical symptoms of their body preparing for action. They think they must be doing something wrong.

But there’s nothing wrong with those feelings. They are normal. They are necessary. Without them, you’d be ill-prepared for what came your way. You should thank your body for the pre-show jitters because they’re a sign that you’re ready.

The chemicals released inside you when shit’s about to go down give you sharper reflexes, better vision, and more strength and speed. They make you alert and move blood into where you need it most.

Thinking of your physical response to fear as weakness can make you angry at yourself. You can believe you’re lacking something because you have these feelings. You think no one else experiences them.

I was once embarrassed by the fact that I lived with an underlying fear that never went away. I did things that helped mask it, and built a persona that was the opposite of what I was really feeling.

We are all pretty good at hiding our terror. Most of us feel it. Few have mastered transforming the fear into something 100% positive. We just don’t show it to each other because we don’t want to be perceived as weak, or we want to put on a strong facade for someone else’s benefit.

My favorite fighter of all time, Georges St-Pierre, was terrified before his fights. He’d sometimes throw up and always wondered why he was putting himself through such torture. He’d worry about the outcome and his abilities. Meanwhile, he was a masterful monster who would run through his opponents.

Fear is often irrational. Most people are never going to get into a fight or be in a true life-or-death situation. The things they are afraid of are how they are going to pay their bills, get a mate, or hold on to their job. These aren’t things that are likely to cause literal death, but they could get them shunned, leading to a metaphorical demise. It feels like death to their ego.

Public speaking is terrifying for people because they fear exposing themselves and being rejected. They worry about what others will think of them. When they speak in public, they’re offering their thoughts for consumption, and they’re afraid of being judged unworthy of attention. They fear excommunication.

I’ve worked a lot on my fear over the last decade. Overcoming it meant confronting my feelings about death. It was once a subject I couldn’t bear to think about. The prospect of losing those I loved was too much for me.

But there was also the question of non-existence. I was once an atheist who didn’t believe there was anything for us after death. I was a materialist and didn’t trust in dimensions beyond our own.

Today I’m more of a pantheist. I believe the totality is God. Whatever this grand thing is that we are but a tiny part of, that is God. But that God isn’t involved in our day-to-day lives. It doesn’t care about holding a parking spot for us or being worshipped, and it doesn’t punish us when we fuck up.

But I also believe that after our death, something happens, a transition followed by a type of rebirth. I don’t believe this life is the end for us. I think we are all one consciousness, being expressed through different bodies — one “I” behind every gaze. That consciousness continues after our individual deaths, but who or what it continues as, I don’t know.

Even if I’m wrong, and the lights just go out when we die, who cares? If that’s the case, we won’t know it anyway. Our power will be off. We won’t remember who we miss, and we won’t ever be scared again.

These thoughts have helped me deal with irrational fear, but I still worry way too much. I let the sensations turn into anxiety too often. I allow the thought of a bleak future to turn my present into a nightmare.

It’s tough to be afraid when you’re truly in the moment. If the fear is justified, you will be fully in it rather than just thinking about it. You don’t have time to worry when you’re genuinely scared for a good reason. You’re just experiencing fear as you are responding to the stimuli. This kind of fear is less mental and more physical. It is bearable because you’re not ruminating about it, and it’s over when you no longer need it for action.

Worry is a waste. It doesn’t solve problems. Worry only gets in the way of solutions. It convinces you that failure is in your future. It cuts off your confidence and turns you gray quicker. Worry is the kind of fear that does you no good.

You can only control what you can control, and while you can do your best to steer toward the future you want, there is always uncertainty ahead. Become comfortable with the uncertainty. Be okay with not knowing. Do your best to make things turn out the way you want them to, but don’t be terrified that the universe may have something else planned. It probably does, but that’s nothing to be afraid of.

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