I started writing this post about a week ago. My theme of fear isn’t that original, but constantly recurring in our thoughts. Since starting writing, two things have happened to me that have reinforced the stupidity of most of our fears.
Without going into the gory details, I had a biopsy last Tuesday for possible prostate cancer. I’ve had one before, and its precautionary rather than done with great expectation of having cancer. But the mere act of going through a very invasive procedure, and confronting the possibility of a life threatening disease does highten your awareness of the fragility of life.
14 hours after undergoing the biopsy, my daughter informed us that our car was on fire. So at 4.15am, about 5 hours since last used, we waited for the fire brigade to arrive. This brief clip now on YouTube (where else!) shows the demise of “Ethel”.
The loss of a car is insignificant compared with the loss of life and devastation to land and property in recent times, such as in Australia earlier this year. But the burnt out remains, with no discernible cause, were quite shocking to me. Also, had we parked the car in it’s “normal” place our house would have been well ablaze by the time the fire crew turned up.
How to Build Self Confidence
As I discussed in my last newsletter, I’m currently read Nathaniel Branden’s 6 Pillars of Self Esteem. Although rewarding, its not exactly a light read. By comparison, last week I read the best selling Who Moved my Cheese.
I’m often fascinated by the juxtaposition of some of our experiences and what we see, hear or read. Our personal reflections on anything don’t occur in isolation. For example, what we read links in with other things we are reading - your thoughts from one source can influence your interpretation of the other.
At the same time as my “Cheese experience”, I also read yet another annoyingly good article on Henrik Edburgs the positivity blog: How to Build Self Confidence: 6 Essential& Timeless Tips.
I do recommend you read the post, but here are the six tips:-
- Take Action. Get it Done
- Face your Fear.
- Understand in what order things happen.
- Prepare
- Realize that failure or being wrong will not kill you.
- Get to know who you are and what you want out of life.
The third point may seem a bit vague, but Henrik uses dialogue from a film to illustrate how fear comes first, then courage. And after doing something more than once, the scariness starts to wear off:-
It may seem scary now. But after having done whatever you fear a few to a dozen times or so you may think: “Is that it?”. You almost feel disappointed of how anticlimactic it has become. You may even get a bit angry with yourself and wonder why you avoided doing it for so long.
So in effect, half of the tips to Build Self Confidence look at facing fear, overcoming being scared, and not being afraid of failure.
Who Moved my Cheese?
What you are afraid of is never as bad as what you imagine. The fear you build up in your mind is worse than the situation that actually exists.
The above quote is not from Henrik but Spencer Johnson in Who Moved my Cheese. This very short and easily digested book gives a story about change. How some people, with their set beliefs and behaviors, cannot (or will not) embrace change. And they become “extinct”.
Our emotions can complicate things and living in the “constant white water with changes happening all the time at work or in life can be stressful - unless people have a way of looking at change that helps them understand it.”
The book is quite simplistic, and I’m not saying its the answer to all lifes problems. But my take on it is how we take comfort and reassurance with what is familiar, and change at any level can be unsettling. Big change (its all relative to your own lifestyle) can be really scary, unless you change your attitude(s) towards it.
Throwing the Cheese book and Build Self Confidence post together, as I did by reading them on the same day, you get a double whammy of fear. Two illustrations of how fear can mess us up. But if you then reflect on real life - tragedy, disaster, disease - none of which we tend to spend much time fearing.
I’m not suggesting you should switch your fears away from change, new things and what people think of you to worrying about the possibility of fire or serious health problems. Worrying never solves anything - learn to problem solve. But such events can help put other fears in perspective.
译文:
恐惧是关键
大约在一星期以前，我开始着手写这篇文章。这个关于害怕的主题并不新鲜，而且时常在我们的脑海里反复出现。自写作以来，我遭遇了两件事。它们坚定了我的想法——我们的恐惧大部分都是愚蠢的。
由于被诊断出可能患有前列腺癌，上星期二我做了切片手术。可怕的细节就不说了。我曾经做过一次切片，其目的是为了预防癌症，而不是为了排除患上癌症的可能。然而，经历了一次手术，面对一个换上恶疾的可能的确能让你更深刻地意识到生命的脆弱。
手术结束14个小时后，我女儿告诉我，我们的车着火了。因此，凌晨4：15，离最后一次用车只隔了5个小时，我们等待着消防队的到来。这简短的一幕被放上了YouTubee（随处可看！），那展示了Ethel的“死亡”。如今，失去一辆车已经不能和失去生命，破坏土地，损毁财产相提并论了，就像年初发生在澳大利亚的森林大火那样。车子的起火原因还不明确，但烧剩的残骸仍让我心有余悸。如果我们把车停在它“该停”的地方，那么我们的房子也可能会在消防人员到来前熊熊燃烧。
如何树立自信
在上一次的简讯中谈到，我最近读了Nathaniel Branden的自信的6个关键。虽说获益不少，但那绝不是本轻松读物。为了对比，上周我看了最畅销书《谁动了我的奶酪》。
我总是惊叹于部分经验与我们的所见，所闻，所读间的联系。我们对任何事物的反应并不是孤立产生的。例如：我们读过的内容会与我们正在阅读的内容有联系——对一个信息的看法会影响你对另一个信息的理解。
同时，根据我的“奶酪经验”，我还在Henrik Edburg的积极博客上读了另一篇非常好的文章: 如何建立自信: 6 大基本& 恒久建议。
我强烈推荐你看这片文章，而以下是6点提议:-
- 行动起来，解决问题。
- 直面恐惧。
- 了解在何种情况下会产生恐惧心理。.
- 准备。
- 要明白失败或是出错不会要了你的命。
- 了解自己是什么样的人，想从生活中学到什麽。
第三点似乎对你有点用，但Henrik借用一句电影中的对白阐释了恐惧第一，勇气第二是如何形成的，他同时还说当你反复做同一件事情后，恐惧就会地渐渐消失：
也许你现在会害怕，但当你一直在从事你所恐惧的事情后，从几次到十几次，那时你就会觉得“就这么件事吗？”它是如此的平淡，以致让你感到沮丧。你甚至还会埋怨自己：为什么逃避了这么久才做。
因此，事实上，在树立自信的建议里，有一半提议探讨的是直面害怕，克服恐惧，不畏失败。
谁动了我的奶酪 ?
你所担心的并不像你想象中的那样可怕。构建在你脑子里的恐惧比真实情况更糟糕。.
以上那句话并不是源于Henrik，而是引自Spencer Johnson的《谁动了我的奶酪》。这本薄而易懂的书向我们讲述了一个关于“改变”的故事。一些人固执己见，不愿改过，是不能（也不会）接受改变的。而他们将会渐渐地“消失”。
我们的情感可以使事情变得复杂化而居住于“不断翻腾的浪花中，工作或生活时时发生变化，这种环境难免会让人感到紧张不安——除非有一种方法能使我们关注到这种变化并从中得到启迪。”
这本书简单明了，但我并不是说它可以回答所有生活中的问题。它教我们如何在熟悉的事物中获得舒适，打消心中的不安。这就是我对这本书的理解。任何程度上的改变都会让人感到不安。除非你改变对恐惧的态度，否则大变化（关系到自身所有的生活习惯）才是真正让你感到恐惧的事情。
我在一天内同时看了奶酪书和树立自信一文，两个作品的观点不期而遇。你们算是沾了恐惧的双倍晦气了。这两个读物同时向我们说明了，恐惧是如何让我们精神崩溃的。但如果你能认真地想一下，在现实生活中——悲剧，灾难，疾病——没有一个是能让我们把时间过多地停留在恐惧上的。
我并不是建议你把恐惧从改变中，从新事物中，从别人对你的看法中移开，而转去担心发生火灾的可能性或是严重的健康问题。担心永远改变不了任何问题——要解决问题。然而，担心却能帮助我们透视可怕的事。