Fear can paralyze us, preventing us from achieving, even from living.
Sometimes, the frightening events brought to us daily on television make us feel like Charlie Brown, of the “Peanuts” comic strip, when he went to see Lucy at the “Psychiatrist Office” she opened in front of her house. Her sign read: “Consultations, 5 cents.”
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When Charlie Brown stopped for advice, she asked him, “Are you afraid of responsibility? If you are, then you have hypengyophobia.”
“I don’t think that’s quite it,” says Charlie.
Lucy continues: “Are you afraid of staircases? If you are, then you have climacaphobia. Maybe you have thalassophobia. This is fear of the ocean, or gephyrobia, which is the fear of crossing bridges. Or maybe you have pantophobia. Do you think you have pantophobia?”
“What’s pantophobia?” asks Charlie.
“That’s the fear of everything,” says Lucy.
“That’s it!” shouts Charlie Brown.
Every crisis we face is multiplied when we act out of fear. Fear is a self-fulfilling emotion. When we fear something, we empower it to become fearsome. If we refuse to concede to our fear, there is nothing to fear.
President Franklin Roosevelt said it best: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
The essence of moral and political leadership lies in the ability to force us to face our fears and, by so doing, overcome them. That was FDR’s great talent, and he used it to lead the nation out of the Depression and on to victory in World War II. His programs were modest by today’s standards, but his inspirational qualities were huge.
Even the most talented are not immune from the curse of fear. When Johannes Brahms was only 20 years old, it was evident he was a musical genius of the first order. On a visit to his idol, Robert Schumann, the great composer was so impressed with Brahms’s gifts, both as a composer and as a musician, that Schumann declared he had met the “next Beethoven.” That did it for Brahms. For the next 23 years, he was unable to complete his first symphony for fear of having his work compared – unfavorably – to that of the supreme musical figure of all time.
Fear is a disease that rots our will to succeed.
In 1987, I ran my first marathon in New York. I trained exceptionally hard, but, of course, training and the real thing are two different animals.
Every first-time marathoner has one objective: to finish the 26-mile course. And no first-time marathoner can be certain he or she will finish. When you have never done something before, how can you be certain you’ll ever be able to do it? You can’t. You’re afraid.
I have since run 10 marathons, always planning to finish, but knowing that might not be the outcome. Yet I’ve never been afraid that I couldn’t do it.
There are two days every week that I refuse to be afraid of – yesterday and tomorrow.
Yesterday is gone, with all its problems, worries, mistakes and accomplishments. All the money in the world can’t bring it back. It is senseless to be afraid of it; it is reasonable to learn from it.
The other day that I’m not afraid of is tomorrow. It’s beyond my immediate control, because it hasn’t happened yet. It could be the best day of my life, and I will do everything in my power to make it so. Things could go wrong, but the sun will still rise and I will have many opportunities to make things better.
So I concentrate on today, and do my level best to keep fear of the unknown at bay.
The commanding general in the Persian army would go through a rather unusual ritual with captured spies: He would give the criminal a choice between the firing squad or going through “the big, black door.”
Most spies decided on the firing squad, with the usual results.
Turning to his aide, the general said, “They always prefer the known way to the unknown. It is characteristic of people to be afraid of the undefined. Yet, we gave him a choice.”
What, asked the aide, lay behind the big, black door?
“Freedom,” replied the general, “and I’ve only known a few brave enough to take it.”
Mackay’s Moral: Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the mastery of it.
Harvey Mackay is author of The New York Times best seller “Pushing the Envelope.” He can be reached through his Web site: www.mackay.com; or Mackay Envelope Corp., 2100 Elm St., Minneapolis, MN 55414.
