The Weird Fear of Doing Things That Matter
Our Mind is Only Playing Tricks With Us. It’s Terrifying But Hilarious.
I wish I knew how to do things that matter. That is odd because often, I master all situations thrown at me. I can learn the theory of relativity and everything that is connected to it in one afternoon. I am a learning machine, a tough young woman.
But I am so afraid of everything. Fear shows in avoiding situations or tasks at hand.
The way I avoid touching spiders (why would I touch them) I avoid writing that 200 words essay, answering that teacher (who is particularly important to my degree), and so many other things that MATTER.
I don’t get what it is that is holding me back.
I call it fear.
But knowing the word still keeps me blind of what is really happening to me.
There are so many things which I have had the privilege to experience, that I have no reason to fear writing short e-mails. No one holds me back from getting those A* in school.
But what if that no one is fear?
What is Fear?
It is silent, it is invisible, it is a no one because it is you.
Some people might suggest that there is no fear holding me back from my career.
You are just being lazy.
This is so wrong. What has it to do with laziness? I don’t sit on the couch watching TV until midnight. Not being active gets me bored so fast. A personality test once suggested that I am an activist — a person that LOVES to be productive. I have three appointments tomorrow, two instruments behind me waiting for their one-hour training, and an assignment to finish due tomorrow.
How does that match with me avoiding things that matter so much to me?
This is where fear comes into play.
What is important deserves holy attention surpassing any human abilities to be completed.
That what matters becomes SO giant, it is nothing my eyes would even dare to look at.
Now, you can already guess that I am writing this article with the sole purpose of avoiding to look at what else there is to do.
The Problem with Fear
Looking at the definition already answers that. I don’t feel my fear, I don’t feel what matters to me, I just live my life, hoping I will never have to face it.
Fear leads to me looking as if I was doing nothing. People think that I am doing nothing — trust me, I did nothing.
There is this meme illustrating what that looks like. Just lying in bed all day, watching the sun orbit the earth (actually earth is circling itself, but well), and thinking to yourself there are so many things to do. I promise you will fall asleep feeling like a piece of shit and the next night, 24 hours later, falling asleep feeling even worse, having changed nothing at all.
When fear becomes you, when you become fear, you become nothing because fear avoids everything.
You die inside, you die out. With you, a whole inner species that has driven your ideas, given you impulses, and everything connected to the self, has died out.
What to Do Now?
The solution: Just do it.
Another thing to add to the solution: It won’t be helpful to those who need help the most. If just do it can get you started, then sorry, you don’t have the slightest idea of what I am talking about. You lead a comfortable life; you have such a nice-tempted and sorted mind that you don’t even need to waste time reading an article about something you think you can relate to.
If you try to just do it, it is your fear just doing it. It is not you.
Now, something you have never been introduced to, something you don’t even feel exists, suddenly makes appointments, writes essays, prepares presentations, all for you.
No wonder things you do in fear are crappy. They are not from you, they are from a stressed-out human whose mind 100% just switched to survival mode.
That shutdown, which comes from being in survival mode, can save your life. But unless you are faced with a lion or having a heart attack (?), most of the time it will crush yourself, your reputation, and relationships.
I am sorry to have failed at presenting a fulfilling solution to the problem.
However maybe, I don’t need to explain a complicated answer for you to go.
If Fear Becomes Me, How Can I Become Without Fear?
Fear is in you, fear is a part of you.
I just spent 30 minutes explaining why and to which extent that is horrible.
Now, what do we do?
I hate that question. It is as if my story here could save your and my life in an instant. Just writing this story makes me realize that I see … black … when I think of a solution.
I cannot save you. I cannot even save myself. This is so depressing.
Ultimately, the fear of doing what matters stems from overthinking situations — because how could you know that something is GIANT unless you have thought through what it should look like, how it should taste, of which material it should be made of?
Step one: Reinvent Fear
Fear is so abstract. I hate abstract words. So, I use an easy one to describe it so that it meets my IQ.
Fear is a picture. Fear is always a picture. It has never really been more than that. Fear is something you see — just not with your eyes. Fear is the picture that you are afraid of.
Writing an article, the fear you have is not the fear. It is the picture of the article you have in mind that makes you think you are fearful. You are not fearful. You have a picture in your mind which distance to reality is bigger than the distance between the earth and the edge of our galaxy (yes, I studied physics hierarchy course).
Your fear is not wrong. Your fear is never ever wrong.
The picture is wrong.
Sometimes, we are turning rats into elephants. It is not always the case, so we won’t lie to ourselves saying:
- The assignment is not at all that important.
- That e-mail doesn’t matter — just write anything, it will be fine.
- Your exams are not important. Enjoy your life, god damn it!
You will just say:
- My picture is wrong.
- What is it that I am doing?
- If I don’t know the reality, I shouldn’t trust my picture, I should trust reality.
For this to help you, diving deep into what I mean is just contra-productive. What I say is we need to change the way we look at things. We need to see that what we interpret is not what really is. We need to trust reality. That is it.
And I will just say
- There is nothing left to say.
Step two: Go back to step one
Step three: Read this story from the beginning.
Step four: Do sports. Read a book. Anything silly.
One short disclaimer: If you didn’t understand my point, don’t worry, there is no point. Explanations that have to do with your psyche don’t need to be explained thoroughly to be helpful.
