What kind of life do you end up with if every real choice was made out of fear?
I can tell you what it felt like in mine. Every time I was with someone because I was scared of being alone, I ended up lonelier with them than I ever was by myself. The choices I made to escape the fear only fed it.
Fear-based decisions only lead back to the fear. We make them to avoid the worst outcome, and avoidance is exactly how we end up living it. Every time.
It's not just me. A close friend of mine is getting divorced. She married someone she believed would be financially secure, so she'd lead a comfortable life and never have to worry about money. She has a deep-seated fear of not having enough. She didn't know that the safe choice would strip her of her voice, her power, and leave her more financially vulnerable than she'd ever been. The thing she was running from ran alongside her the whole time, waiting. All that effort to dodge it, and it showed up anyway, at her most exposed moment.
So what the hell are we actually running from?
Not the outcome itself. No, being alone isn't unbearable. Failing isn't the bitter end we expect. The fear isn't "this will hurt." It's "this will confirm something about myself I'm not sure I could survive knowing." It's all ego. We make mental leaps convincing ourselves: if I end up alone, it means I'm unlovable. If it fails, it means I wasn't enough.
Even worse, we worry, "What will people think?" We get stuck on the anxiety of one day having to explain to some neighbor who asks, "What happened to Jerry? He was such a nice man." It's immobilizing. We get flooded by what-ifs. But who the fuck cares? Who will even remember? And the only one that actually matters: can I live with myself, and the choices I made?
We're not protecting ourselves from pain. We're protecting ourselves from a story. And the story was never fucking true to begin with. The actual experience, even the painful version of it, would have proven that.
Here's what we forget when fear has us by the throat: the upside of the failed attempt, the lost love, the swing and a miss is a win. I don't want to hire someone who's never tried and failed. I don't want to be with someone who's never loved and lost. The people I find most compelling, the ones I actually want to work with, the ones worth being around, are the ones with real scars and something to say about them. They've lived through something hard and honest and come out with a point of view. The risk that didn't work out isn't proof of your deficiency. It's proof you cared, you tried, and you know how to pick yourself up and go again.
I find it hard to trust someone who's never failed at anything. Show me you've been tested. Because all that grit, all that experience, makes you more lovable, not less. The fear had it completely backwards.
Fear is supposed to keep us safe. Mostly it keeps us stuck. Choosing someone for security delays the day you build it in yourself. Dating to avoid being alone stalls the one thing that would actually change it: facing yourself.
Are you playing to win, or just playing not to lose?
Stay unscripted my loves.
🖤 - EmmyLu