Fear Takes a Holiday

Somewhere between getting out the door and arriving at work yesterday I lost my fear.

I spent the evening before last contemplating the outcomes of the following day: what could be said, what could I respond with, what would happen. As I began to spin these scenarios out in mind the worst of all possible fears came up: I'd be fired.

What would I do?

As I began to become agitated, I suddenly realized that I had been without a job before. Not by choice of course, but it happened (see January to May 2009 posts for a running history). And you know - we survived. Maybe not well, but we survived.

I had confronted the greatest fear - the worst thing that could happen to me. And suddenly, all other things were lesser fears - peoples' words, people's opinions, people's actions.

All of a sudden, as I got out of the car to go to work, there was no more fear. Calm resolve, a sense of what needed to be done, but no fear. I had confronted my worst fear - the fear of being fired - and had banished it.

My day was different -better, in fact. Not because any of the circumstances had changed - in fact, they got worse. However, I was able to view the entire day with a sense of resolve and a sense of humor (surprisingly) - because I knew already what the worst thing that could happen was, and realized I could deal with it as it occurred. If I could deal with that, I could deal with anything less than that.

I was free - finally, gloriously free.