


Episode 41: You Only Have to be Brave Once
Jan 12
7 min read
I hate the sensation of falling. I've never gone [00:00:30]Â skydiving, and I have absolutely no interest in trying it. When I was young, I remember pleading with my parents not to go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. because of the very brief moment in the ride where you drop down a steep slide. I may have been like 10 feet down, and it was still on an angle, but it scared me to death.
Regardless, I was made to go on the rides with the rest of the family. It's not like we could have split up very easily, but even when I was [00:01:00]Â really little, I even remember when my dad would throw me up in the air, And how much I hated it. As much as I disliked that sensation though, it's not that bad for me anymore.
But I never really got over it until I voluntarily chose for myself to try a roller coaster out for the first time. And I think the first roller coaster I ever went on was because I was with some friends and I didn't want to be a coward. I can't remember exactly why I chose to do it, but I did and it [00:01:30]Â was terrifying and the second time I did it, it was frightening.
The third time was scary, the fourth time was uncomfortable, and the fifth time was kind of fun. I never came to love roller coasters. I just don't think that is really a part of me, but it's no longer something I fear very much. A twinge of apprehension is about the most I experience at this point. Being forced or pressured into a thing, in my own experience, just doesn't cure a person of their fear.
But when that person [00:02:00] voluntarily chooses to be brave, it does. The first time being brave for something is the hardest time to be brave. And to be fair, contrary to what I imply in the title, it's not necessarily going to cure you. I've never come out of a situation where I exposed myself to a fear for the first time and actually felt good about it.
There's always a little bit of satisfaction in knowing that you did something that you were afraid of, but [00:02:30] generally you don't come out of the experience feeling significantly less afraid. But you will be less afraid. You may think to yourself, I'm never doing that again. But if you felt you had to do it, it would probably be easier to do it by quite a bit.
I read something in a book one time that I thought was interesting. And They said that when experienced soldiers were asked about what they feared most. The answers were usually different versions of being afraid to let down their [00:03:00]Â friends. When the same questions were asked to soldiers that had not yet experienced combat, the answers were typically based around a fear of dying in battle.
I once knew a guy that was, uh, he was an EOD specialist in the army, which stands for Explosive Ordnance Disposal. So basically the bomb squad. He told me once that one of the most common improvised explosives in Afghanistan was Like a improvised landmine. They would take a [00:03:30]Â plastic cooking bowl or Tupperware and they'd place it over an explosive device.
Apparently the plastic cooking bowls were strong enough not to collapse when the, when a typical Afghan walked over it, but they were weak enough to break under the step of a heavily loaded American soldier. He told me that to defuse these was. Relatively simple, and a person could walk up and dust off the bowl and get to work, but maybe one in a hundred was actually targeted at the bomb squad, and they would actually be rigged to blow up if someone were [00:04:00]Â to tamper with it.
So, consequently, the American EOD soldiers would use robots to dispose of these. Explosives. But a lot of the Afghan soldiers would often take their chances. And what I thought was interesting was when he told me that these guys were usually scared to death the first few times that they'd do it, but after 10 to 15 times, they might as well have been dusting off a rock for all they cared.
Conquering fear is not a one time event, but it [00:04:30]Â also is not something you have to necessarily do a hundred times before you're without that fear. One of my recent struggles has been getting back into the dating game. It did not take me very long to realize how drastically different it was going to be from when I was in my 20s.
I went ahead and I hopped on some apps and I just assumed dating would be easy. I thought, I'm healthy, I look pretty good, not a problem. Needless to say, [00:05:00]Â I was humbled. I could go on about dating apps, but I'm sure you've already heard enough commentary on them. After really limited success and mostly failure, I realized that even though my work life does not put me around many women, there are still maybe one to two times a week that I see a woman that I'm attracted to.
Granted, most of these women are probably going to be in a relationship, but I realized I was giving up one to two opportunities every week to meet someone. [00:05:30]Â So I told myself I needed to just get over it and start approaching these women when the thought came to mind. So the first time, post divorce, that I approached a woman was one of the most excruciating things I've ever done.
There was this cute, red headed girl working for a company that had hired my company, and To do some work for them. And I had her number because I had to exchange some documents with her. So I resolved to just give her a call and ask her out. I was [00:06:00] literally shaking and sick to the stomach, uh, back in college.
I'm not sure I ever really approached somebody that was more or less a stranger. I always made sure to know if they were single before I took my shot, but I don't generally have that luxury anymore, so this was almost like the first time for me. It was a painfully awkward experience. I called her up, I asked her out, and of course, she told me she had a boyfriend.
[00:06:30]Â And I awkwardly fumbled out a few words, and I hung up. I felt sick and almost ashamed for the rest of the day. It was one of my worst experiences. It almost went as bad as I could have imagined. There's something about showing your interest that feels Super vulnerable. For me, it was never terribly hard with women that I already knew to expose that interest to them, but the idea of approaching a woman that I barely knew at all sounded about as nice [00:07:00] as rubbing sandpaper on a rug burn.
I didn't try it again for months after that, but somehow I got myself to do it again, and I'm pretty sure I scared the hell out of some girl at a park when I came walking up to her. I told her I thought she was cute, and she told me something to the effect of I'm sorry. I'm not from here. So I said okay, and I kept going on my way.
Remarkably, it was not that big of a deal. And the next one I approached, visibly recoiled for me. And somehow, it just [00:07:30]Â did not get to me so badly. Disappointing, for sure, but not crippling. I still haven't ended up getting a date with any of these women that I approached on the street. At this point, I think I've probably approached maybe six of them.
And I'm still uncomfortable every time. But that fear of exposing my interests to a woman has been melting away. I feel like I'm getting a little better as well. I'm a little more aware of how not to scare the girl now. Thank heavens.
[00:08:00]Â And my chances are always going to be low. When approaching strangers anyway, but my chances of meeting someone at all are going to be so many times more than anyone not doing it, which is like 95 percent of men.
So, I may be misleading a person when I say that you only have to be brave once. Maybe it takes more than one time for that fear to go away entirely, but it only takes one time to take the worst of that fear away. A [00:08:30]Â life without fear sounds like true freedom to me. I think in a way fear is the only problem we'll ever have in our life.
It seems like just about every hurt and pain in our life ties into fear somehow. Maybe you're afraid to fail so you never try. Maybe you're afraid to lose so you never love. Maybe you're afraid you're not deserving, so you don't expect anything from other people. Your fears may very well come true, but part of becoming brave is to come to accept that maybe those fears can become [00:09:00]Â a reality.
Once you can accept the possibility of your fear coming true, it sets you free to also accept that it may not always come true. When things happen as we fear they might, we can use it as a justification to stay afraid. Or we can let it inoculate us against that fear. I remember a time where I was working in a remote area of the Philippines.
That was well known to have a heavy NPA presence. Uh, the NPA is like a rebel [00:09:30]Â faction in that country. And I don't believe I was ever in any real danger, since their issues were with the government, not with Americans. But I knew at least one person that was briefly kidnapped by them at one point.
Obviously, they let him go after a few hours, but consequently, I was afraid. But oddly enough, the one thing that ultimately gave me comfort was imagining the worst thing that they could do to me. And trying to accept it. Which I figured at the time was to hold me ransom or to kill me. [00:10:00]Â And I can't imagine myself facing down death with perfect resolve like the guys that you see in the movies.
But I can accept that we all have to die at some point. And if it happens sooner than later, so be it. And somehow embracing Or at the very least, trying to accept my greatest fear at that time, ease the burden of that fear. So be brave, and set yourself free from the chains it has you bound in. Fear is the enemy that wants to keep us from living.
[00:10:30] Fear is the prison that we reside in, and no prison is more confining and limiting than that one. Only by conquering that fear can we finally taste freedom. The private war we wage with fear is never going to end, but it only takes one moment of bravery. To start winning that fight.