Fear is a strong motivator. The risk of losing has a stronger influence on decisions than an equal statistical chance for gaining, even when the reward is greater than the potential loss. This is a human condition, however, and can be overcome. It just takes more effort and requires us to pay attention.
The fear of failure is usually considered as an individual problem. This is largely because there is a notion that things get done by individuals, great men mostly, off somewhere in a cave or a desert or a lab, in a bathtub or a limousine.
Like Mae West, I do my best work in bed, but I’m usually half asleep and alone. Can I get some props for crediting a woman’s influence at least?
The human “individual” while not entirely mythical is similar to a point in geometry or a river in the world. These are imaginary concepts and fixed points of reference we employ for convenience.
We know through science that stationary, solid matter is actually moving, not only through space-time, but also on a subatomic level. It is in fact more space than solid.
Ironically, we would not have been able to figure that out without first developing geometry and mathematics based on assuming the opposite for expedient practical reasons, that “things” were fixed and numbers and words could represent ideal, constant concepts.
This is what our human process is all about. We can call it the dialectic, feel satisfied with ourselves as if we knew something, and then move on and slip back into lazy habits of thoughts, spouting opinions based on fixed assumptions of convenience.
Who has time to think about anything as both fixed and in motion? It takes more energy and attention to consider alternatives and imagine what is possible down another path.
What is the alternative? If we are constantly bouncing back and forth between the river is different all the time and the same when we want to refer to it for a purpose, won’t we just needlessly get confused?
We all have, nevertheless, the capacity for this kind of thinking and the feelings that go with it. We do it for fun and for work. But a great deal of the time apparently we get uncomfortable with the intentional tension of being able to shift from one extreme framing to the opposite.
Fear is not a challenge for the individual alone. Fear of failure and accomplishments are not the province of the imaginary individual at all. No human could exist without others and no person thought of anything without others before and contemporaneous.
As much as some of us at one time or other would prefer to get things done alone, really big and important things just don’t happen that way. There is always a process of moving back and forth between what we do as imaginary individuals and cooperatively with others.
2Danielle L. Vaughn and Shavaun Scott
I Dwell In Possibility 