By Tristan Hostetter / Jambar Contributor
What’re you afraid of? The Boogey Man? Taxes? Losing your wallet? Halloween store props? The moments in a scary movie you need to watch between your fingers?
We are scared. From climate change, to politics to voicing an unpopular opinion about a new artist everyone seems to love, Americans are afraid. Fear sits at the center of almost every choice we make. Politicians exploit it, companies market to it and voters respond to it. But what they cannot change is our ability to recognize fear as a catalyst, not a crutch.
Fear is our compass, not our enemy, and according to Kathleen Tusaie, PhD, board-certified advanced practice psychiatric and mental health nurse and professor at the University of Akron, fear is “a protective emotion that arises in response to a perceived threat, how you think about something that is in your world that is happening right now.”
Tusaie emphasized the difference between fear and anxiety, with anxiety being more “future-oriented thinking” and “worrying that something might go wrong,” and fear being more “acute and immediate.”
From my perspective, fear is the constant subtext of life. It shapes decisions we call practical when they’re actually emotional. When we talk about artificial intelligence taking over jobs, it’s not technology we fear — it’s irrelevance. We do not care how we go extinct — we just do not want to die.
Fear also evolves. Children are not afraid of death, just as I am not afraid of a monster in my room. But children will look under their bed before going to sleep, much like I check the locks on the door and the knobs on the oven.
“It depends upon your worldview, like if your worldview is that the world is a dangerous place, and you better be careful, there aren’t many people you can trust, there aren’t many organizations you can trust and that worldview comes from life experiences, as well as generational beliefs,” Tusaie said.
The emotion of fear feels the same whether you are six or 63 years old. It changes names and gets less creative but that weight in your chest, your heart changing tempo and the hesitation before moving forward feels the same now as it ever has.
Back in 2014, Chapman University launched the “Survey of American Fears.” Every year since, thousands of students have been asked about their greatest fears and anxieties. In 2014, the top fear was walking alone at night. By 2016 and every year since, the number one answer has been corrupt government officials.
These surveys show that fear mirrors our politics, economic struggles and private insecurities. Fear dictates who we vote for, who we trust, how we save money and how we raise our children.
“The trick to functioning and a general sense of well-being is to have a balance between logical and emotional thinking. So, the fear and anxiety are often emotional, so if you’re finding yourself too emotional, then you need to be more logical,” Tusaie said.
We are all afraid of different things for different reasons, but fear itself is universal. Have you ever sat with your fear and studied it? Asked what it looks like or why it exists? That is where the answers are. That is where we grow. That is where we become who we have always been. That is how fear lets us live.
Don’t be afraid of fear. Fear keeps us moving.