Failure, Change, and The Unknown! Oh my!

Dorothy: Do you suppose we'll meet any wild animals?
Scarecrow: Mm, we might.
Scarecrow: Animals that eat... s-traw?
Tin Woodsman: Some, but mostly lions, and tigers, and bears.
Dorothy: Lions?
Scarecrow: And tigers?
Tin Woodsman: And bears. 

- Wizard of Oz (1939), care of IMDB.com 

Ever since I've started down this "self-discovery" journey, I've been searching for "the root".  The penultimate cause of my behavioral and emotional problems.  Even when I didn't know what I was looking for, I just had this idea in my head that every problem has a root somewhere.  

Over time, I realized that looking for "the root" left me spinning in circles following paths that lead to other paths which lead back to original paths.  From that point, I sort of gave up my search for "the root".  

Since then, however, I've noticed a few running themes that always seem to pop back up:  Failure, Change, and The Unknown.  And more specifically, Fear of Failure, Fear of Change, and Fear of The Unknown, but it fit into the wizard of oz quote better the first way ;-)

While it's not a specific event, or situation that I was looking for when searching for "the root", I believe these three fears are some of, if not the, top contributors to the problems I deal with today.  

Fear of Failure:

I guess, somewhere along the line, I missed the lesson on failing. Failing with grace, failing without going off the rails, failing with confidence.  The fear of failing, or screwing up, or disappointing someone, is something I've yet to find the tools to overcome.  As a result, I'm hesitant to try new things and go out of my comfort zone.  

And failure doesn't necessarily need to be a grandiose event.  Making someone else's job more difficult, even by accident, is a failure to me.   Not living up to expectations, even unrealistic or irrational ones, is a failure to me. 

I have a hard time seeing a failure as an opportunity to learn.  Historically, it's been an opportunity to beat myself up.  It's gotten to the point that I almost expect failure when a new situation arises.  Another way it also ties in with the Fear of Change, is that if I don't change things, if I keep as much of my life the same way it's "always been", there won't be any brand new chances to fail.  When a new opportunity arises, I'll immediately start thinking about how it can all go wrong, and start planning for ways to get out of it as quickly as I can. 


Fear of Change:

Like I said above, Fear of Change is tied very closely to Fear of Failure.  Change inherently brings opportunities to fail.  Yes, there's also chances to succeed, but my mind focuses on the failure opportunities.  

There's a change in leadership at work.  Immediately my mind starts to run with thoughts of "Things are going to be harder to accomplish, I'm not going to get along with the new leadership, things were fine before, why did they have to go and screw things up?"

Change also brings with it, in most cases, unknown outcomes.

Fear of The Unknown:

I meet someone new.  I have no idea where things will go between us.  Will they go smoothly? What differences of opinion will come up along the way?  How will they react to how I do things?  How will I react to how they do things? What will happen if things get to the point that either side doesn't want to have contact with the other side?

My brain tends to go on overdrive when a situation with an unknown or unpredictable outcome arises.  I start to extrapolate problems that can come up.  I have to be prepared to handle what's going to come up.  I need to know about it now, I can't wait for it to happen and then react.  


This post took longer than I'd planned on to write up, and I should really get some work done ;-)  I may come back and update and expand upon it some more.