On Fear, Hope, & Patience

2023.11.26

Lindy Expectancy: 42 Weeks

Meditations: 7/8

While both hope and fear fuel growth, the ability to have patience with that growth stems from hope, not fear.

Fear

Fear is a great impetus for change… when that disappointment in continuing to watch yourself make the same mistake over and over mounts into fear that you’ll be damned to live a life filled with the same error over and over again, it’s a good opportunity to kick it into high gear and figure it out. 

When I was a freshman in college, I noticed that I had a bad habit of just agreeing with things and acting like I knew what was going on in some situations in which I actually had no idea what was going on.

I’m not talking about staying calm and controlled in a new environment and figuring it out, I’m talking about the equivalent of someone saying something in a foreign language and me just making noises that sound roughly similar as a response. 

That’s really what it felt like, partly I’m sure, because it was a business school with a cornucopia of jargon. There were some times when I went along with conversations that I had no idea what was being said and I just simply added noise that probably meant nothing. 

Whenever I would catch myself doing it, I would be really bothered by it, until, eventually, I was so afraid of bullshitting for the rest of my life that I slowly but surely forced myself to stop doing it–instead, I would either ask questions at the risk of sounding dumb or try to pick up meaning from context clues and be content not having anything to add to a conversation.

It wasn’t easy, and it was a painful process involving mentally lashing myself whenever I lapsed.

Four Years Later

Four years later, and I rarely, if ever catch myself making things up. If someone talks about sports, which I generally don’t follow other than knowing roughly how Michigan is doing, I’ll usually insert an unassailable statement like “I’m sure we’ll get em!” and move on. If the other person really likes sports, I’ll ask one or two generic questions, but I don’t dwell on it and act like I know a bunch (I really don’t). 

In March, though, I actually had a conversation in which I relapsed to freshman year me: I said some things that simply were not true to sound like I knew what was going on. I was really frustrated and angry with myself—I thought I had moved on from that.

And really, I largely have… after all, the one major time I did it in the last couple of years was significant enough for me to write about it now. Still, the level to which the mistake bothered me was quite maddening. Now, I think it’s because I was originally growing away from that sort of error more out of fear of who I was than out of hope for who I could be. 

Shirtless Pictures of Christian Bale

Imagine you feel unhealthy and low energy and want to grow away from that; you want to feel and look good and live a life full of vigor.

You hear that working out is the solution. However, there’s a catch: you’re not allowed to see or talk to anyone who has worked out for longer than you.

So, on day one, you go to the gym, ready to get away from the body you have. You lift some weights and feel better. But, by the end of the week, you’d probably start getting pretty disillusioned… how long will it take to see real gains? What are you actually trying to work towards?

That’d be hell! You’re uncomfortable where you are, you know that you want to go somewhere different, but you don’t know what it looks or feels like or have any idea of what it takes to get there.

You will lose hope.

I know for my part, I started working out partly because it was very easy to visualize the ideal outcome. In high school, that was other guys on my swim team who were faster, strong, and more energized than me, and then, of course, there was Christian Bale shirtless on the internet... the desired outcome was quite obvious. 

Knowing what is possible and what it takes to get somewhere gives you the tools you need to be patient with the process. Otherwise, you’re just in pain with no reprieve. You can get pretty far that way, but I would contend that it is nowhere near as sustainable as if you have your end goal in mind.

Difficulty in Character Growth 

If you are consumed by the fear that the kind of person you are is destroying your life, well, that’s maybe a decent way to get growing, but it’s not a place you want to stay.

Character growth is hard and multi dimensional. Just as lifting is not about just getting bigger arms, but getting bigger legs and chest and shoulders, too, and just like getting more fit is not just about lifting but can also be about running and swimming and calisthenics and yoga which each have their own dimensions, character growth is nuanced.

It can take years to right a ship that’s off course; if you don’t know where you’re going and are afraid of what you’re moving away from, then your ship will be so plagued by fear that even if you’re going in the right direction, you won’t be having a good time.

It takes years or maybe a lifetime to become the person you want to be.

I’m certainly not the person I want to be yet, and I’d say it’s been roughly 3 years of really concentrated efforts for me, character wise. Too much of that growth has been out of fear, though. I’m making an effort to add in more hope. How could I not, if there’s a whole lifetime of this ahead?

Running Towards or Away from Something?

It’s harder to be patient when you’re only running from something… trust me, I’ve tried. When I wanted to stop saying things that I had no idea of whether or not they were true, I was running from who I was. It was very painful and frustrating when ever I slipped up.

I wanted so desperately to be better than the person that I was that I was not even paying attention to where I was going; I was led by fear instead of hope.

The pain of staying the same doesn’t just have to come from what you are if you don’t change. The pain of staying the same can also come from not being who you know you can be.

Now, if I had to make that same anti-bullshitting change again, I might focus more on the positive side of things: I want to be a person who people can trust, a person whose word is worth gold. That’s a noble, motivating goal.

Imagine lifting without any idea what it might look like if you were jacked. Imagine investing in a relationship without any idea of what it could be… the moment it got rocky, you’d leave. Or, even worse: imagine staying in a terrible relationship but never leaving because you didn’t take a moment to ask what a good relationship should be.

Are you running away from something or towards something?

Hope

Fear of staying where you are right now can be a good wake up call, but you’ll go mad on such a long journey if you don’t maintain that unwavering hope of who you can be. 

Here’s something I heard a few weeks ago that really stuck with me:

Who do you think you’re supposed to be? How can you run towards that, rather than away from who you are? It’ll be a long journey regardless, you might as well pack a little hope.

The meditation counter is ticking up as the days grow shorter. I’m not a huge new Years person, I’ve always thought it’s a bit contrived, but I am getting excited for what 2024 may hold.

Live Deeply,