The Other Thing About Fear
"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." -Yoda, as played by Frank Oz, The Phantom Menace
I’ve read dozens of articles over the years about conquering our fears. I’ve even spoken about it myself. We always talk about how we can’t let fear hold us back. We remind people that once you do the thing you fear, it will be less scary. Give the speech, ask the person out, jump out of that airplane. Once you’ve done it, you likely realize that it was silly to be as scared as you were… But that’s not what I want to talk about today.
You see there’s this other thing about fear. It can also drive us to things we never would have expected. And for the record, I am not talking about good things. I’m talking about being driven by fear and allowing ourselves to become a lesser version of ourselves.
For the last several years, I have seen a lot of people I know, some of whom I have respected greatly in the past, make decisions that terrify me. I see them posting hateful diatribes on social media. I see them angrily defending their beliefs even when those beliefs demean others, who are just out their trying to get by on their own. So what would cause these rational people to spew this hurtful vitriol?
For quite awhile I struggled with why these otherwise nice people would go to such great lengths to be hurtful to others. It became quite clear to me when I stopped focusing on what those people were saying, and instead started paying attention to what they were listening to. Of course, many of the things they were saying were simply regurgitated from others they had heard speaking. By others, I mean leaders of all sorts in our world.
You see, what the people in those leadership positions are doing is telling those around them what to fear. They tell you a certain people, places or things are to blame for your problems and they keep saying it over and over again. While some of us will seek facts and not believe false rhetoric, others will believe it. Our friend Yoda does a great job explaining what happens when fear takes over…
"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
And that is the path we see happening every single day in our world: Fear—>Anger—>Hate—>Suffering. If we want to improve the world, we have to find a way to stop that cycle.
The big problem lies in the fact that our brains are really bad at understanding what threats are real and which are only imagined. When we are presented with a social threat, our brain interprets that the same as if someone was directly and imminently threatening our physical well being. What that means, is when we let fear take over, our brain stops being logical.
So when we see a post on social media that tells us to fear a certain people, places or things, if we aren’t careful and skeptical, our brain can switch to that fight or flight mode and we find ourselves losing our sense of logic and truth.
But what can we do about that? How can we stop the cycle of fear driving us to see these things as the root of all of our problems? I’m not going to pretend that there is a simple solution to that issue. One of the main reasons for this is that villains absolutely exist in our world and we need to stand up to them. Yet, if can’t determine the difference between real and imagined villains, we will find ourselves fearing or fighting the whole world.
For that reason, I believe that a good first step is to view everything with a dose of healthy skepticism. That means for instance, when we first read something on social media, we assume it is likely false. Then before sharing or commenting, we do our research to confirm its validity. Doing this means that in addition to finding the truth, you are giving your brain some time to calm down and slip out of fight or flight mode.
All of that said, it’s important that we are skeptical, not cynical. I’ve seen skepticism taken to great lengths where even in the face of evidence, we fail to believe the truth. Hence the term, healthy skepticism.
Maybe at this point you are yelling at your computer something like, “Hey Jason, just because I use healthy skepticism that doesn’t mean others will!” And I would agree with you. However, every action we take, every post we share, every comment we make, all have a ripple effect.
So in truth, just being better for yourself can have a compounding effect on your friend group, and their friend group, and so on. So get out there and don’t let fear drive you to be a lesser version of yourself.
-Jason