Disclaimer: When I talk about fear in this article, I’m mostly referring to learned fears and imagined consequences, rather than the survival-based fear that exists to protect us from immediate danger.
Fear obviously serves an important purpose. If a lion starts running toward you, this probably isn’t the moment to challenge your limiting beliefs around large cats.
But most of the fears governing our everyday lives aren’t lions.
They’re rejection. Failure. Looking stupid. Losing money. Being judged. Being alone. Having a difficult conversation. Starting something and discovering we aren't good at it. Ending something we've outgrown. Being seen. Being ourselves.
And one of the most fascinating things I've learned about fear is how much its importance can change depending on what else is happening in our lives.
Fear Has a Strange Hierarchy
Several years ago, I went through an extremely difficult period where I stopped relying on the behaviours and substances I had previously used to numb myself and change how I felt.
Something strange happened.
I suddenly started doing improv, stand-up comedy and a really difficult martial art.
These were all things I'd wanted to do before but had repeatedly procrastinated on and rationalized away.
The truth was much simpler.
I was scared.
Scared of standing in front of strangers and telling jokes.
Scared of looking like an idiot at improv.
Scared of walking into a martial arts class where I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
Then something much more difficult entered my life, and suddenly those fears seemed almost laughably small.
The fear of looking stupid at an improv class hadn't objectively changed.
What changed was its relative importance.
I'd experienced something considerably more frightening and uncomfortable, and my internal hierarchy of fear rearranged itself.
That taught me something I've never forgotten:
The intensity of a fear isn't necessarily evidence of the size of the danger.
Sometimes fear simply feels enormous because we haven't yet experienced ourselves moving through it.
Fear Isn't Always Logical
I've entered places where there was a genuinely elevated risk to my physical safety without thinking about it particularly much.
Yet I fear surfing.
Probably something to do with growing up in South Africa and hearing about shark attacks.
I've walked through the African wilderness where lions roam freely and felt relatively calm, yet the idea of walking alone into certain networking events and making sober small talk with strangers has occasionally seemed considerably less appealing.
Perhaps I need a wildlife guide for networking events.
"Stay calm, Bentzy. Don't make sudden movements. The management consultant is more afraid of you than you are of him."
The point is that our fears are deeply personal.
One man can stand in front of 5,000 people without breaking a sweat but be terrified of telling his wife what he's actually feeling.
Another can take enormous financial risks but cannot tolerate rejection from a woman.
A man can be physically courageous and emotionally terrified.
He can be incredibly successful professionally and still organize huge parts of his private life around avoiding situations that make him feel inadequate.
This is one reason I've become much less interested in whether someone appears fearless.
The more interesting question is:
What are you afraid of, and how much of your life have you organized around avoiding it?
Fear and Avoidance
Fear itself isn't necessarily the problem.
Avoidance is where things become interesting.
Every time we avoid something because we're afraid, we receive immediate relief.
Thank God I don't have to do that.
The problem is that relief can quietly reinforce the belief that the thing really was too dangerous for us to handle.
So we avoid it again.
And again.
Eventually, something we were originally afraid to do becomes something we believe we're simply incapable of doing.
I think this happens in men's lives far more than we admit.
We call it being realistic.
We call it waiting for the right time.
We call it keeping our options open.
We call it protecting our peace.
We call it being careful.
And sometimes those explanations are completely legitimate.
But sometimes they're sophisticated ways of saying:
I'm scared.
I've become much more interested in admitting that sentence.
Because once I can admit that fear is involved, I can decide whether I actually want it making the decision for me.
Break the Fear Down
Take something incredibly common:
“I'm afraid of public speaking.”
Okay.
What exactly are you afraid of?
You're probably not afraid of physically speaking while other humans happen to be nearby. You do that all the time.
Perhaps you're afraid you'll freeze.
Perhaps you're afraid people will judge you.
Perhaps you're afraid you'll embarrass yourself.
Perhaps you're afraid you won't perform as well as you expect yourself to.
Perhaps you're afraid someone will discover you're not as confident or competent as you appear.
Keep going and eventually you often arrive somewhere much more interesting than:
I'm afraid of public speaking.
You might arrive at:
I'm afraid of what I'll think about myself if I fail publicly.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Because sometimes the person we're most afraid of facing after failure isn't everyone else.
It's ourselves.
Fear Can Point Toward Growth
This is where fear becomes useful.
I've increasingly found that some of my most persistent fears have existed around things that mattered deeply to me.
Not always.
If you're terrified of jumping into crocodile-infested waters, I don't think your soul is necessarily calling you toward crocodiles.
But when fear continually appears around something you deeply want, I think it's worth paying attention.
Starting the business.
Writing the book.
Leaving the wrong relationship.
Pursuing the right one.
Speaking publicly.
Creating something.
Changing careers.
Telling the truth.
Being seen.
Becoming more fully yourself.
Sometimes fear doesn't stand between you and danger.
Sometimes it stands between you and expansion.
One of my favourite quotes speaks directly to this:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
Marianne Williamson
When I first came across that quote, something about it hit me physically.
Because one of the stranger things I discovered through my own growth was that I didn't only fear failure.
At times, I feared what would happen if I actually became the person I kept claiming I wanted to become.
What would that require from me?
What would I have to give up?
Who would I outgrow?
What responsibility would come with it?
Would I still recognize myself?
Sometimes staying where we are is painful, but at least it's familiar.
Growth introduces uncertainty.
And uncertainty can be fucking terrifying.
Men and the Fear of Becoming Someone Different
I think this deserves particular attention for men.
We talk a lot about men's fear of failure.
I think we talk considerably less about men's fear of transformation.
Because genuinely changing your life doesn't simply mean adding some better habits to the existing version of yourself.
Sometimes it means allowing an identity to die.
The man who has always been promiscuous may have to discover who he is when sexual validation no longer defines him.
The man who has always been emotionally unavailable may have to learn how to be vulnerable with a woman he genuinely loves.
The man who has built his identity entirely around money may have to confront who he is when he isn't producing.
The man who has always been the funny one may eventually have to let people see that he's hurting.
The man who has spent years saying this is just who I am may eventually have to confront the possibility that it isn't.
I experienced this myself.
During one of the biggest periods of change in my life, I eventually realized that part of me was genuinely afraid of becoming healthy.
The healthier version of me was unfamiliar.
My existing behaviours, identities and ways of experiencing life might have caused enormous pain, but they were mine. I knew them. I understood how that version of me operated.
Becoming someone different meant entering unknown territory.
And the unknown is where fear thrives.
Fear and Excitement Can Feel Remarkably Similar
Another thing I've become much more conscious of is how easily fear and excitement can become confused.
Both can come with a racing heart, heightened attention, butterflies, adrenaline and that unmistakable sense that something important is about to happen.
Sometimes the thing we interpret as:
I shouldn't do this.
might actually be:
I've never done this.
That's not the same message.
I've learned to become curious when I feel that kind of resistance.
Is something genuinely wrong?
Or am I standing at the edge of something unfamiliar?
Is this intuition?
Or is this fear?
Is my body warning me away from something?
Or is it responding to the fact that I actually care about the outcome?
There isn't a perfect formula for answering those questions.
But asking them is considerably more useful than assuming every uncomfortable feeling is an instruction to retreat.
Facing Fear Builds Self-Trust
One of the greatest rewards I've experienced from facing fears has nothing to do with the thing I was originally afraid of.
It's what happens to your relationship with yourself afterwards.
You do something you've spent years telling yourself you couldn't do.
And suddenly you have a problem.
Your internal story has evidence against it.
I'm not someone who can do that.
Except you just did.
Do it again and the evidence gets stronger.
Eventually the little voice that has spent years explaining your limitations starts losing credibility.
I used to think confidence primarily came from believing in yourself.
I now think a significant amount of confidence comes from having evidence that you can trust yourself.
You told yourself you'd do something frightening.
You did it.
You survived.
Maybe you even enjoyed it.
And perhaps most importantly, you discover that fear itself is something you're capable of carrying.
You don't need to wait for it to disappear before you act.
That's a completely different relationship with fear.
Courage Isn't the Absence of Fear
This has become particularly important to how I think about men and strength.
The goal isn't fearlessness.
A man without fear isn't necessarily courageous. He might simply be reckless, unaware of the consequences, or completely insane.
Courage requires fear.
Otherwise there's nothing courageous about the act.
I think the stronger question for a man is not:
How do I stop being afraid?
It's:
What am I willing to do while afraid?
Can you tell the truth while afraid of the consequences?
Can you approach the woman while afraid of rejection?
Can you admit you were wrong while afraid of losing face?
Can you leave something comfortable while afraid of uncertainty?
Can you show someone who you actually are while afraid they might not accept you?
Can you pursue something meaningful while accepting that you might fail?
Fear doesn't disqualify you from courage.
It's the prerequisite.
Fear, Integrity and Freedom
This is where fear connects to something I've become increasingly interested in: freedom.
Fear quietly controls enormous parts of people's lives.
Not through force.
Through avoidance.
You don't take the risk.
You don't say what you believe.
You don't pursue the relationship.
You don't leave the relationship.
You don't change careers.
You don't start the thing.
You don't set the boundary.
You don't become the person you want to become.
And because nothing dramatic happened, it can feel like fear didn't cost you anything.
But it did.
The cost was the life you didn't live.
This is why facing fear has increasingly become an integrity issue for me.
If I know something matters deeply to me, but continually allow fear to make the decision, eventually I have to admit that I'm not actually living according to what I say I value.
Freedom doesn't mean eliminating fear.
It means fear no longer gets an automatic vote.
The Spiritual Act of Facing Fear
My relationship with fear has also become deeply connected to my relationship with God.
Growing up inside an intensely religious environment gave me a complicated relationship with both.
Religion can sometimes teach people to orient themselves toward God through fear. Fear of punishment. Fear of sin. Fear of doing the wrong thing. Fear of questioning. Fear of becoming something outside the boundaries we've inherited.
My relationship with God today feels very different.
Increasingly, I experience spiritual growth not as becoming more afraid of getting life wrong, but as becoming more willing to discover and take responsibility for who I actually am.
There is a quote often attributed to Joseph Campbell that I've always loved:
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
I believe there is something profoundly spiritual about that.
Each of us arrives here with particular curiosities, talents, desires, sensitivities and capacities.
Then life happens.
Parents.
School.
Culture.
Failure.
Rejection.
Expectations.
Fear.
Layer after layer gets added until sometimes we can barely distinguish between who we actually are and who we've learned it's safer to be.
For me, becoming more fully myself has required removing some of those layers.
And God has become part of that process rather than something standing in opposition to it.
If God created me, then perhaps discovering and responsibly expressing what was placed inside me isn't rebellion.
Perhaps it's part of the work.
What Are You Afraid Of?
I'm considerably less interested these days in pretending I don't have fears.
I have plenty.
The difference is that I try to pay attention to them.
Some fears are there to protect me.
Some reveal wounds that need care.
Some are telling me that I need more information before making a decision.
And some are simply standing at the entrance to a part of my life I haven't been brave enough to enter yet.
The work is learning the difference.
Because fear is always going to be part of being human.
The question is whether we continually organize our lives around avoiding it, or learn to move with it when something matters enough.
As Marianne Williamson continues in the quote I mentioned earlier:
“Your playing small does not serve the world.”
That line has stayed with me.
Not because I believe everyone needs to become famous, wealthy, extraordinary or spend their life pursuing enormous ambitions.
But because I think there is something tragic about becoming smaller than you actually are simply because being fully yourself frightened you.
The goal isn't to become fearless.
It's to become the kind of person who doesn't need to be.
And for a man trying to live with integrity, I think that's one of the most important forms of freedom there is.
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