Fear can do two things to us. It can either be our worst enemy or best friend. We often get stuck because we are afraid of making the next move. We get ourselves trapped in all the reasons why we shouldn't step out of our comfort zone, which sometimes leaves us feeling hopeless or helpless, or both. As a result, we miss out on opportunities and not having life experiences.
When we were kids, my younger sister, Nour, and I always tried different things. For example, building a wooden swing and hanging it on an old tree behind the house, just to find ourselves falling down flat on our backs and saying to each other: “I told you it wouldn’t hold.” The painful fall didn’t stop us from trying to build it again and the next time we used a stronger set of nails and ropes.
We didn’t worry about falling, or failing. We picked up the pieces and tried again, because we had a goal: to have fun as we flew to the sky on our magical swing.
Then we grew up, and as grown-ups we obeyed certain rules and expectations that the rest of society and the world live by.
This worked for me until a certain age, when I noticed how controlled by fear my life was. I started asking the people around me, thinking that I was the only one who was fearful of doing anything different to the norm.
It turns out that everyone breathes in fear in one form or another. Fear of rejection, failure, pain, losing; fear of being judged, outcast, looked down on, hated or disappointed.
As humans, we need fear. It helped us survive thousands of years and if we speak scientifically about it, fear is induced by a stimulus, a threat, that produces the needed chemicals in our brains for fight or flight.
We are afraid of truly loving ourselves and others because they may see it as a weakness. We fear the rejection of a mate who can help solve a problem if we ask them. Or try to look for a new job instead of the one we resent because we are afraid of failure. We hide our dreams away as we fear people’s judgement if we speak about them.
As a result, we get stuck in a relationship we don’t want, toss in a problem that we can’t solve on our own, wake up to a job we hate and kill our dreams.
Knowing that, I couldn’t comprehend living a life trapped in fear. Therefore I decided to make a deal with it and make it my best friend, a motive to be a better person and challenge the status quo. Unlike what people think, being fearless doesn’t mean you are not afraid. On the contrary, it means you choose to use it instead of being consumed by it.
Now every time I’m afraid of doing something new or making a decision, I ask myself: what’s the worst that can happen? And by answering that honestly, my scary lion turns into a cat and with it comes my freedom.
Deena Al Mansoori is a project manager and an entrepreneur.
