Happiness Quotient Headquarters

January 9, 2008 1 Comment

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I’m leaving in about a week on a flight from California to Florida, so it is time for my pre-flight jitters to start kicking in. I usually scribble a handwritten will minutes before boarding out of my absolute certainty that this will be my flight into eternity. I once even threw up in the airport bathroom before a flight. Screeners see my pacing and sweating, and I am invariably pegged as a potential terrorist so I get “wanded” and typically my suitcase gets opened. This is the place where my extra large granny underwear usually falls out. So I have been thinking about fear lately and how most of us live under its tyranny all the time.

I have a therapist at my office, one who specializes in treating anxiety, who likes to say FEAR=False Evidence Appearing Real. Sometimes I substitute Expectations instead of Evidence. It works about the same. I try to keep this in mind as my eyes dart around the plane looking for strong, smart-looking individuals who could save me in an emergency and vulnerable, cherubic kids that I would need to save. I am probably the only person who listens with rapt attention as the flight attendants give their pre-flight safety talk and who can tell you exactly how many rows of seats are between me and the door should a panic ensue. One time, on an Alaska Airlines flight, I confused the sound of the landing gear going back up into the plane after takeoff with the sound of both engines obviously falling off and the plane instantly becoming a giant lawn dart. Being a naturally imaginative person does not help you in this scenario.

Mark Twain once said, “I have had a great many troubles in my life, half of which never happened.” One article I’ve read noted research findings that 85% of the things we worry about actually end up having a positive outcome. Check out the article for some great tips for the chronic worrier (See http://www.cognitivetherapynyc.com/usatoday.pdf). Have I ever had a life-threatening emergency on a plane? No, few people have. In one class I took to address my fear of flying, they said that statistically more people in the U.S. had been killed by being kicked in the head by a goat the previous year than had been killed on a U.S. domestic flight. So now I can’t be around goats. Just kidding.

The point is that most of us have some fear of something, when what we need to be afraid of, as FDR said, is fear itself. In reality, the worst experience I have had on a plane is sitting right next to the bathroom on a long flight to Costa Rica. Need I mention that every child on the flight needed to go the bathroom repeatedly? This is where my fear should have been more realistically placed. I should have feared getting that particular seat on the plane, not just being on the plane. (By the way, some of those kids went on my list of Children Not to Save in Case We Become A Lawn Dart).

Barry Glassner’s book, The Culture of Fear, makes some good points. It suggests that the economy of the U.S. is largely fear-based. Advertisers make you feel fear in order to get you to buy their products. It is sometimes subtly presented but basically you have to buy this kind of product to be a manly man or this kind of soup to please your children or this kind of jewelry to make others think you are sexy. If you don’t buy life insurance, your children will never go to college. If we weren’t afraid of being or being perceived as ugly, uncaring, tacky, or some other terrible thing, we wouldn’t be motivated to buy, buy, buy. Dissatisfaction breeds consumers.

The news on television can fill you with anxiety. I had to change how I learn about the news. I made the decision to actively view the news rather than to passively sit there while the latest update on killer bees washes over me. So I get my updates from the internet now. I can see the headline and choose to pass on it. When watching television before, I would hear some things that I really didn’t need to hear before I could locate the elusive remote control. My point is that I don’t want to bury my head in the sand. I need to know what’s happening. But I also don’t want to be brainwashed by the media with messages about what a frightening world it is. The media has learned the same thing the advertisers have: Fear Sells.

But what a waste of time it is. As Mark Twain pointed out, most fears he had never happened. My plane to Costa Rica never became a lawn dart. Had I avoided taking it, I would have stayed in my comfort zone, but I never would have experienced the joys of learning about a new culture. Costa Rica is a country which years ago disbanded its military to spend the money on education and become one of the most literate countries in Central America. I would also have missed their friendly people, unusual fruit drinks, relaxing under the warm waters of a volcano-heated waterfall, and seeing a Jesus Christ lizard (which actually walks on water).

There is a Japanese story that describes fear as a painter who paints an image of a tiger on the canvas and then runs screaming from the painting. There is no real tiger there, only the image that he himself created in his mind. Although the painter appears ridiculous, don’t we all do this to some degree? The next time you are afraid, whether it is something large or something just beyond your comfort zone, think about the tiger. Is the fear justified, or is it mostly imaginary thinking? Is it worth devoting the negative emotional energy to it? What positives could you gain if what is feared doesn’t happen? Are you being driven by the not-being-good-enough messages of the advertisers and the media? Costa Ricans like to say, “Pura Vida” which literally means “pure life” but which means “fine” , “great” , “very well”, “everything ok” to Costa Ricans. And it is, when we spend less time worrying and more time being “purely” in the moment. Now if only I can remember this on my flight next week……

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Self-Development, Travel

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