DAILY SLICES OF LIFE - The Price of Fear

 

                                   The price of fear is often regret for what could have been.”

          This very interesting quotation by Brian Cagneey, the well-known American Personal Coach and author of the well-received 7-Laws book series on personal development, explores a very important aspect of the price we all pay for giving in to our fears.

           We have been raised to believe that any failure committed by us is unacceptable, and that we should always chase success at all cost. Society, in its unyielding demand for success, openly favors those who succeed, and discourages those who, for whatever reason, fail. The fact is, we have all become slaves to the demands of society, so that any attempt to flirt with failure is likely to trigger in us feelings of trepidation, induce risks of being ostracized, and give rise to regrets for having failed. It should come as no surprise therefore we all cower in fear, and tend to spend the rest of the time regretting what we might have had, or could have had, or should have had. We end up holding all hopes and dreams at bay for fear that we might fail and not be accepted. Instead of living a full and fruitful life, we become, like the countless numbers of our friends and neighbors, just simply existing, floating around like so much flotsam.

          We educate and encourage our children to aim for success, and reward them for success only, and warn them to avoid failing at any cost. Most of us forget that unforgettable observation by the very successful American investor and philanthropist Paul Tudor Jones, when he was asked to comment on failure:

 “Failure is the fire that forges the steel of success.”

Instead, we continue to encourage them to seek only success, and to avoid doing anything that might fail. We should not be surprised therefore, that they grow up with a deeply embedded fear of ever failing, and with the urge to attempt only those things they feel will be successful. And to make matters even worse, whenever they tried and failed, society does not hesitate to show its disappointment, without ever accounting for the reasons for failure. This approach inevitably serves to engender in the minds of the developing children an unconscious fear of failing, which then sets in motion the cycle of regret we all tend to feel for having tried and failed.

          But without question, the principle of trial and error, the making of mistakes, has always been nature’s method of choice for successful growth and learning, and fear, contrary to the generally held impression, is a double-edged sword. Although on the one hand, it can produce severe debilitating consequences to the person, yet, when used judiciously, it becomes a useful friend and trusted ally, where, armed with the right attitude, and free of the restraining chains of guilt and regret, failure is an effective learning tool. Therein lies the major problem with society. Since it is obsessed with getting results and finding solutions, we find ourselves more concerned by results than by learning and by growth. Mark McCormack, a very successful American attorney and representative of many of the major athletes, was convinced that:

 “Fear of failure, if harnessed correctly, can be the energy that drives the wheel.”

         In every aspect of our relationship with others, behavioral science studies have long established the fact that that the fear of regret plays a significant role in our decision making. We tend to make decisions less on what is best for ourselves, and much more on how it impacts on others. If it is allowed to run unfettered, it has a huge impact on our lives, and forces us to resist change, and stay with our status quo, even when our good sense and intuition clearly points in the other direction. Yet, it is rarely the act or the thought of the action that gives rise to the feelings of insecurity, it is rather the resulting sense of unworthiness that result, and the effect on others that is the true culprit. It is not what we end up doing or saying that holds us back, but what goes on in our minds. This is what that outstanding New Zealand explorer and mountaineer, Sir Edmund Hillary was alluding to, in 1953 after he successfully reached the summit of Mount Everest as the first human being to do so. When asked how he was able to conquer the fear that had paralyzed so many before, he replied:

“It is not the mountain we conquered, but ourselves.”

         Fear itself is powerful enough to hold us back from trying to achieve our goals and what we considered our best quality of life. It serves to induce a sense of stagnation and interferes with our thinking, our confidence and our zeal to undertake even simple tasks. We end up, voluntarily making, and then admitting ourselves into self-made incarceration, not because we were forced to do so, but because we wanted to hide from ourselves and avoid dealing with the regret that overwhelms us. We live in the past, and allow our past missteps and mistakes to so dominate our thinking that we cannot appreciate the sunshine of a new dawn. We spend more time worrying about what could happen, that we ignore all the good things happening in the present. Before long, this inevitably spreads to include not only being afraid to act, but even when we choose not to act. Can it be any surprise therefore, when we become consumed by feelings of regret and of disappointment!!

          We quickly find that trying to ignore these fears or to repress them always proves to be an impossible task in the long run; they always find ways to come back and bite us. And any attempt to try to deny their existence or find some plausible explanation for them is unlikely to stand and we are forced to give up. All of these stresses will slowly interfere with our instincts and our intuition and cause us to make decisions and commit actions we should not have done, miss opportunities that could have been beneficial, or arrive at conclusions that are not justified and rob us of the happiness that others were enjoying. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great 19^th century American author and philosopher, who himself was no stranger to the impact of fear, wrote extensively on its effect on him, very correctly declared:

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”

         But as I have noted in a previous essay (Living with Fear), fear itself is not to be feared, but rather it must be embraced, understood and replaced. To do so, necessitates first becoming aware of, and accepting the fact that they are causing havoc in our life. It is very easy for us get so attached to our thoughts and fears that we lose insight into reality, and accept our fate as prisoners. We need to actively try to alter our perspective from dwelling on the negatives and replacing them with positive, more constructive thinking. Above all, we must begin to live only in the present, and remind ourselves that our past, however painful, is past, while the future, does not yet exist, and therefore bears no consequences to the present. In the end, the great American industrialist and founder of the very successful car industry that carries his name, Henry Ford, was correct when he advised:

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy.”

-This indeed, is the single, most important remedy for the exorbitant price we all pay for surrendering to the ravages of fear. It cannot be ignored nor can we try to hide from it. But we can try to grasp it, understand it, and replace it by first gaining insight into who we really are, and choosing to live only in the present.

 

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