The chemistry of the moment courage overcomes fear is a total mystery.
Fear.less loves stress management techniques, productive reframing and positive thinking. We have psychologists and neuroscientists ready to explain why these work. Almost all of the contributors admit that they were afraid at their life-defining moment of truth and continue to feel fear to this day. Fear remains a presence in their lives, and for some of them, it even becomes a moderator or ally.
You can weaken fear or reshape it, but it will remain, telling your dreams “no”. No matter what there is going to be some precise, hyperdense point in time where your fear meets your new mind face to face – and hand to hand. All your new perspectives and defense mechanisms are but preparations for this one quantum of self-confrontation.
Nobody knows how the mechanics of this battle for sure. You will just have to make a leap of faith of some length and dare to venture a piece of yourself.
You’ve been on the high diving board for a while now, staring down at the water and the witnesses, too conscious of the harsh crispness of the air. Once you tip your body over the edge, you have decided. Gravity runs its course and there is no turning back. There is a fateful autonomy to it. Soldiers trained by generals must pull the trigger, alcoholics tempered by meetings must skip the party.
I think fatalism can be a factor in this moment, and so can love, and anger, and I’m sure many other things, many other volatile cocktails of emotions tailored to different people. It’s not useful to ruminate too much over it though. I just think it’s important to know that it’s there, looming, waiting for you. A singularity where you decide to sit down and write a business plan or a job application or the next great American novel.
That’s what the dot in Fear.less means to me. In a way I think that devoting yourself too much to fixing your mindset can distract you from the reason you want to do that in the first place. Your head is full of background noise and with our magazine we’ve trying to lead each reader to the stark silence of peering into his fear’s eyes and then making his move.
Get fearless. But then get the dot.
Great post!
For me the ‘less’ helps me move past the dot. It’s the thing that follows the jump that makes jumping worth it.
The dot is the hesitation, but the reward that comes after we push through makes the dot smaller. It doesn’t take it away…but it shrinks it to a manageable size.
If the dot wasn’t there I don’t think we would value the ‘less’
Thanks for sharing!