Fearless Friday: Fear is my companion

Arianna Huffington's recent book, On Becoming Fearless...In Love, Work, and Life, is now out in paperback. To commemorate the occasion, Mother Talk is hosting Fearless Friday, and I'm happy to participate.

I never really knew fear until I became a mother. Frankly, up till then, everything had been pretty easy. I've been blessed with any number of factors that made my life what it is: loving parents, adequate food and water, a secure home, a healthy, functional body, a predisposition toward optimism...the list goes on. Life has had its share of bumps and switchbacks, but nothing that made me question my place on the road, or my ability to travel it.

Then my son arrived.

I've written plenty about my difficult transition to motherhood and I won't repeat it here. Suffice it to say the bumps grew into mountains, and I had to learn to climb.

But the relative ease or difficulty of my transition is beside the point. The fear I've felt since becoming a mother has everything to do with my elemental love for my children. I've described this love as "intense, almost crippling," and I don't think that's an overstatement. When the stakes are so high, the world's randomness ceases to be theoretically interesting. It's cause for abject terror. The tragedies that befall "other people" don't seem as remote as they once did.

Fear now has a permanent spot at my table. I can't tell you I've conquered it, or overcome it, or even minimized it. My triumph is that I've learned to live with it. I've learned to accept it. In some small way, I've learned to embrace it, as it has shown me what I share with other parents throughout the world, throughout history.

Tags: Fearless Friday, MotherTalk

Comments

[Nick]

It's probably easier to be fearless if you have a bizillion bucks like Arianna...

Fear and its sibling, paranoia, have kept me out of many bad situations and potentially harmful accidents. I think fear is a wonderful thing.

Nick

[Parent Hacks Editor]

I hear you, Nick. But being rich doesn't protect one from fear or its consequences. It may give the illusion of doing so, but that's it.

It also doesn't determine one's response to fear. Rich or poor, it takes strength and humility to live one's life proactively, instead of in constant avoidance of fear.