Fear of the Known
I was talking to a friend the other day about “the fear of the known.” As I explained it to her, sometimes it’s hard to deal with life when you know “exactly” what’s coming. Part of it is boredom with the often repetitious nature of life. Another part is knowing you’re going to have to deal with people or jobs that are at least partially annoying. The biggest thing, I think, is that it kinda sucks when you know pretty much what’s going to happen next. I mean, where’s the adventure, where’s the surprises, where’s the epic life I saw in books, movies, and TV?
I found this especially true when my life was out of balance. Right after the shining fun of The University of Connecticut, I was back home working at a department store. The job had its fun parts and good people, but it was generally boring and, to be arrogant, “beneath me.” I had a college degree, but there I was in a red polyester vest stocking shelves and helping people find the furniture aisle. Waking up in the morning was a total drag, and the anxiety produced was not the anxiety of challenge and surprise, but the dread of repeating the same day over again.
Generally, I would exist in low-power mode, allowing my robot self to take over while my mind was lost in fantasies of a better life. Or even a worse life. But at least a life with some excitement, some change, some feeling and meaning.
Then I day off would come, and I would roll out to UConn, ready to adventure on life a little. But instead of plunging into fun, I would be overcome with stress and have some kind of panic overtake me. UConn was familiar, many of the faces were the same, but it wasn’t mine anymore. The extreme difference between my slow and plodding existence back home, and the magnificent monument to action and romance that I called UConn, totally overwhelmed me. Sure, I knew what to do when I was there: open beer, drink beer, make joke, drink beer, flirt with girl, drink beer – but the familiarity, combined with my feeling of being a stranger now, made for a different kind of fear of the known. When would they realize I no longer belonged? Worse, when would I?
This continued even after I moved out on my own and began my teaching career. Somehow, I had come to live a normal life, one with predictable patterns and routines. No doubt that it was challenging, teaching especially, but also familiar. Adding to the repetition of days, I had to learn about the dread of sameness, that my life might now be locked into a form for decades. Again, what happened to the romantic visions of world travel, bestsellers, dancing into blurry late nights with women in short skirts?
As with everything, this problem was mostly one of perspective. I had to admit that this was my life, that I had studied for it, I was working at it, and there were many aspects of it that I loved. So I discarded the “tear it all down and start again” option, if it ever really existed, and embraced what and who I was.
I found adventure in my life. I strove to become a better teacher. I worked on being the best husband I could be. I even tried being a good suburbanite and not hate mowing the lawn so much. It didn’t take much to realize my life was full of meaningful challenges and that I would have to ask a lot from myself to take them on and be truly successful.
Most of all, I realized that I had forgotten the first and original challenge I had woken up to as a boy: finding a me I could live with. Who am I, who do I want to become, how do I want others to see me? The answer, to all of them, was to be a success. I was clearly not going have “shooting star” success, so I would have to build mine. So I flipped my perception about the set and steady parts of my life. I saw the familiar as a foundation, a firm base from which I could work on perfecting and expanding what I already had and what I already was. The beauty of this work is that it is everlasting; it is easy because it is in the framework that I have made for myself to live in.