This postBut fear itself, right? Lately I’ve had my own fair share of anxieties, with the inevitable result that this has been bubbling around in my mind a lot. Is fear necessary? Backing up a step or two, is fear the same thing as anxiety and being nervous? What about insecurities? How does it all fit in?
Having just written that first paragraph, I’m asking myself, “Yeah, how does it all fit in? You have no idea, do you.” And I wonder what on earth I’m going to say. This is one of the reasons why I write, by the way: to discover what I think.
So, embarking on this journey of exploration, I hear my first instinct telling me that fear isn’t necessarily the same as being nervous or worrying. But then another voice says it really is, fundamentally. According to the OED, fear is “the emotion of pain or uneasiness caused by the sense of impending danger, or by the prospect of some possible evil.” I don’t want to turn this into a mere listing of definitions for all of fear’s synonyms and related words, though. For the purposes of this discussion, fear = anxiety = nervousness = worry.
I’m glad I don’t get nervous all the time, but there are certainly times when I do. Speaking or singing in front of large groups. Talking to and (especially) asking out girls I’m interested in. Job interviews. Introducing myself in a group of more than three or four. Finishing a test first. (Weird, I know. :)) There are undoubtedly more that I can’t think of at the moment.
Does everyone get nervous? I assume they do, but maybe there are people who don’t. Whether or not they exist, being nervous isn’t any fun, and I have a hard time seeing it as really helping me on the road to perfection. (Other than through smoothing this rough stone rolling.) Couldn’t I still learn everything I need to learn without fear? There are plenty of other trials in life — it seems like fear just makes things harder to deal with. It’s almost paralyzing sometimes.
All of this leads me to wonder whether or not we’re meant to squelch the fear in our lives, or at least allow God to do so. “Doubt not, fear not.” And “if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.” And from Joshua, “Be not afraid.” Not to mention that every time an angel appears, he inevitably begins with, “Fear not.” (I guess we don’t have many female angels attested in scripture.) I’m sensing a common theme here. Fear is not of God. If that’s the case, then I don’t think being nervous is of God either. Unless we act with a fierce strength of will, nervousness covers our light so we can’t shine. It turns us inward so we can’t serve. It puts us on the bench in the game of life, until we do something about it.
And now I wonder, is that the point? Is it a lesson in willpower? Is it a natural obstacle built in to this course, something we’re meant to adapt to? Would it be wrong to get rid of it? (Opposition in all things, perhaps?)
Part of me says, “Hang it all, I hate being nervous, let’s just remove that from the universe already.” And life would be much smoother and I would sing musical numbers in sacrament meeting and what have you. The other part of me (I don’t think I’m schizophrenic, I promise! :P) counters with, “Sure, being nervous isn’t any fun. But you can overcome it, and you’ll relish it far more by conquering than by eliminating it from the universe. Fight it! This is how you become like Christ — by facing your obstacles and dealing with them, not by praying that they didn’t exist.” You can tell by how much space I’ve devoted to each part which one I’m siding with. :)
Case in point: when I am interested in a girl, I know I have to ask her out, but I’m often terrified to do so. (This in spite of my intellectual knowledge that if she were in fact to say no, I would get over it and life would go on pretty much as normal.) My stomach will go butterfly as I contemplate the inevitable occurrence, scripting out dialogue for both her and me, with a few different choose-your-own-adventure paths based on what I expect her responses to be. And then I swallow (a lot), tell myself that I’ve done this dozens of times and can do it again, and pull out my phone. And then pace around the room with the number ready to dial, for at least ten minutes and sometimes up to an hour, trying to get to the point where I actually press the button. The light on the phone often goes off and I hit the down arrow and then the up arrow again to bring back the light. “What on earth am I thinking?” I ask myself. But I know I need to go through with it, so I press “Send” and listen to the phone ring as my stomach disappears into the inner core of the earth.
And usually it ends up fine. While I would prefer not to get all nervous like that (and shouldn’t there be some law that says if you’ve asked people out more than a few times, the anxiety should go away? Life’s not fair :)), there is a delicious feeling that comes from exerting my will and coming off conqueror. It almost doesn’t even matter if the girl says yes or not — the important thing is that I didn’t let fear rule me.
One last thing. In reading Dean Hughes’ novel Far from Home, I came across one part where a Hawaiian woman tells Bobbi that it’s pointless to worry, since worrying doesn’t actually accomplish anything. Too true! If only I could stop… ~sigh~
