Facing the scaries when you finally start living life.

Day 309. My problem with fear.

I can’t begin to tell you the number of drafts and journal entries I’ve written about fear, only to hit delete whenever I start feeling the tingle of anxiety in my limbs and the undeniable palpitations in my chest.

If you’re one of those calm, impenetrable, confident folks who can’t relate to my (many) entries on fear and anxiety, I am happy for you. Really. I wouldn’t wish all this endless fretting on my worst enemy.

But for the rest of us, welcome to the club.

My fears and anxieties never used to be so pronounced.

It’s not that I’ve never worked independently, but I’ve never had to make so many decisions completely alone. There was always at least one other person in the room with a second opinion I could consider.

Perhaps it’s because I can no longer hide in the shadows of someone else, or behind the name of another organisation. Pursuing life on my own terms also means learning to stand firm on my own, believing that I deserve the good things that happen to me.

Which, by the way, is scary as hell.

I tend to second guess myself and wonder if I am overthinking certain details (I probably am), or not considering others enough. I pick on my own flaws and argue with myself in my head. I constantly find myself in doubt, threading the line between being too much or too little, but never feeling like I am just enough.

Sometimes, all this self-doubt drives me crazy.

But if I’ve learnt anything about fear in the last two months, it’s that while you can’t necessarily ignore them, you can’t give them too much credit either. Our fears become our limits.

You’ve just got to breathe through them and do things scared.

“In trying to spare yourself the worry and discomfort of taking a risk, you're potentially costing yourself an opportunity. In clinging only to what you know, you are making your world small. You are robbing yourself of chances to grow.”

- Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry

So this one is for all of us who get scared.

Fear is a monster that is fed with silence – the less we talk about it, the bigger it gets and the more we talk to it, the quieter it becomes.

Reminder #1: If you’ve decided to share your work, remember that rejection won’t kill you.

It started on the second day of this year, when I began sharing my thoughts on this very platform. It helped that I had supportive and encouraging friends who didn’t mind being forced into being the first seven subscribers of my newsletter. But then more of you joined in along the way, and it truly felt like a coming together of ordinary people – equally lost, equally confused, feeling our way through this blurry existence, trying, reaching, wandering.

The beautiful thing about putting your authentic self out there, is that you’d likely attract likeminded people who appreciate what you have to say.

Sure, haters exist. But on most platforms, you’re more likely to just go unnoticed than to get piled on with hate. (Exceptions exist, of course. But it’s not as easy to attract hate as most believe.)

This is also the same reason echo chambers exist, but thankfully this is not a news site, just a heehee-haha diary, and stumbling into this supportive community of lost folks has been very encouraging.

On bad days when nothing can calm me down, I ask myself: What’s the worst that could happen?

I still feel the jitters every time I hit that publish button, and I pay more attention to post statistics than I’d like to, but my fears have come a long way since my first post on 2 January 2024.

Rejection won’t kill me, but the regrets of my unfulfilled projects can eat at me for a long time.

Reminder #2: You don’t need permission to be given.

Remember that project you wanted to do, but continuously shelved because… wait, you can’t even remember why.

Maybe you procrastinated for far too long. Maybe the timing wasn’t right. Maybe decision paralysis got the better of you, or maybe you were waiting for a sign to get started.

I’m here to remind you that you are perfectly capable of giving yourself permission to do whatever it is you’ve always wanted to do. Just like how you wouldn’t ask a rock for its understanding as you climb over it, you don’t have to seek approval from someone else to do the things you want to do.

And if it feels difficult, that’s because it is. Workouts will make you ache and wish you never started doing it in the first place. But these exercises build our muscles of courage.

And look, your projects might not go as planned. Mine never do. I am still working on the many skills I don’t yet have to bring my ideas to reality. Often in the execution of my ideas, things get chaotic and I get nervous. I kick myself for making silly errors and get embarrassed for trying to make my little dreams a reality.

But in little increments I barely notice, I have gotten stronger. The ache in my feet I once felt from walking this path has been replaced by steadier, easier strides. The once noticeable shiver in my voice is now replaced by long, calm breaths.

Giving yourself permission to just be, is a confidence building exercise. Not everyone is born dripping with confidence, but thankfully it’s never too late to nurture it.

Reminder #3: See life like a series of experiments.

I am a chronic over-thinker. Even before I take the first step towards any endeavour, my mind has gone on to project the next 15,028 steps – each projection always ending in doom.

“If you quit your job, you will end up homeless.”
“If you move to Japan, you will lose everyone and everything in Singapore.”
“If you organise an event, nobody will show up.”
“If you write, no one would read it.”
“If you want to sell stuff, nobody would buy them.”

My track record might have proven these negative assumptions wrong, but fear isn’t convinced by my past patterns of success. “The next thing you do can always fail,” is what my brain defaults to.

But when we treat life like a series of small experiments, we accept that there will be uncertainty. We will stumble into unknowns and potentially face the disappointment of undesirable outcomes.

And that’s okay. As with all experiments, the point isn’t to have it already figured out.

To experiment is to tinker in the in-between state of knowing and not-knowing. Our role is to explore and discover. It is to provide parameters that allow answers to naturally surface, trusting that eventually it will.

If we confronted our fears with experiments that will start and end, accepting that the outcomes do not define us and will not ruin us, I think we’d feel less afraid to take our chances.

At the end of the day, nothing in life is a permanent success or failure. Receiving a disappointing result from one experiment doesn’t mean that you are a disappointment. Similarly, succeeding in one doesn’t make you invincible.

Whatever the outcome, we simply pick ourselves up, dust off our shoulders and move on to the next experiment.

We’re not playing to win. We’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun.

- Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Fears can be all-consuming.

Our fears demand to be felt and they take up a lot of space in our heads, choking the parts of us that are brave and creative and adventurous. I used to think that if I could just fix all that was wrong with me, I’d wake up fearless one day, finally ready to take on the world.

But these fellas don’t budge easy. Our fears and insecurities will always lurk in the dark. They might shrink in size or evolve into a different monster wearing the same cloak, but it’s still there.

So maybe instead of overcoming and rising above, we do the opposite. There is nothing to overcome, nothing to fix. Courage is just a series of shaky deep breaths and a pair of aching, weary feet.

We’ve always been ready.

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I made a zine! 🥳

Thank you to everyone who have already purchased a copy.

This zine (an informal magazine) chronicles my journey of rest and self-discovery in rural Japan and features the stories of five inspiring people I met in Japan, including two Singaporeans building a life for themselves in Japan.

If you’re interested to read it, you can purchase a copy here, or through a subscriber-only purchase link for $2 off.

Existing subscribers should have already received the link in your inbox. If you’re a new subscriber, you will see the link in the welcome email.

Offer ends 23 November 2024!