The Fear Is Inside Me

We are all afraid of different things: falling, commitment, money, or getting hit by a car.  Some of our fears are realistic and useful – I’m afraid every time I cross the street or drive a car.  I think that is appropriate.

But some of our fears hold us back. My fear of heights keeps me from ever standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and admiring the view. Although, I will enjoy the vista in someone else’s photos, or from an airplane – isn’t that the way the Grand Canyon is supposed to be seen?

I used to think that all of my fears were universal, until I saw a video of men in hard hats welding steel girders on a skyscraper under construction more than sixty floors in the air. These workers were actually walking on steel beams where a single slip would send them to certain death.  Ouch!

I wondered, “How can anyone work five or six hundred feet above the ground, and walk around without a net?”

Then it struck me – my fear of heights is inside me, but not inside them.  They’re not afraid of heights.  I am.

Any specific fear that you or I have is not universal. Our fears are completely personal, and spring from our own genetics and life experience.

My mother tended to overdo fear of death.  “If you eat food which tastes bad you will get food poisoning and die.  If you don’t wear your boots in the rain you will catch pneumonia and die.  If you don’t look both ways before crossing the street a car will hit you and you will die.”

Thanks, Mom.  To this day I’m suspicious of food (hint:  food can taste pretty darn good and still give you food poisoning), and I still look both ways whenever I cross a street, which seems reasonable.  But I’ve never been actively afraid of my own death. Maybe Mom did me a favor and desensitized me to the idea by overusing it as a boogeyman.

The good news is that if a fear is personal to you, then you can do something about it.  A few years ago I was riding a tram down from the top of a ski slope.  I intentionally stood at the front of the tram and stared directly down at the ground for the entire ride.  I actually enjoyed the ride.  But it didn’t stick.

After the tram I tried my newly discovered courage on a zip line in Costa Rica. I gamely hiked to the starting point and climbed up the tower.  The guide strapped me into a harness after everyone else in my family had already zipped away.  Then I looked down.

This was the first of eight separate zip lines.  Maybe that’s why they called it “Zip Line Heaven.”  You couldn’t just do the first one, you had to complete all eight. As I was about to step into the abyss I realized that I would have to repeat this incredible experience seven times.  No thanks.  I asked the leader to let me out of the harness, I climbed down to earth, and I walked back to the parking lot to wait for my fearless family.

I should mention that even though I have overcome some of my fears (such as public speaking) there are others I can live with.  I don’t do roller coasters or zip lines.  And I only do trams if there is enough social pressure. I also have a fear of disappointing people.

Alan