Published: September 18, 2008 05:29 pm            

Land Minds: The only thing we have to fear ...

Originally published in the Sept. 19, 2008, print edition.

Have you accomplished everything you’ve ever dreamed of in life? Have you followed through on every passing desire? Have you stood up for everything you believe in, every time you’ve been confronted with a challenge?

No? Me neither. So what’s holding us back?

For most of us I think it boils down to one simple word: fear.

Fear can be channeled en masse to impact an entire society — the Bush administration’s “war on terror” has frightened Americans into forsaking freedoms for supposed safety; fear of global warming has fueled what may very well be exaggerated concern over mankind’s impact on the planet — but it usually is a more personal, intimate matter.

Several of those personal fears have popped up in my life recently, and there seems to be an elemental theme about them.

Air
The first time I ever flew was the summer of 1997, on Southwest Airlines from Omaha to San Francisco. My wife dutifully held my hand as I white-knuckled my very first takeoff, repeatedly assuring me that everything was going to be OK. Which it was, all the way until we started to descend for landing, and I was convinced we were going to smash directly into San Francisco Bay.

Fast-forward 11 years and I now have no reservations about flying on commercial jumbo jets, but for some reason the thought of getting in a small, private plane still gave me the heebie-jeebies. I don’t know if my father-in-law pilot ever took offense, but over the years I repeatedly turned down offers to fly with him — until a recent weekend.

When given the opportunity for a quick flight in a four-seater Piper Dakota from Fairmont to Blue Earth, this time I took it. Maybe it was a desire to look manly in front of my daughters (apparently I feel no need to look manly in front of my wife?), maybe I was sleep deprived and not thinking clearly, who knows.

Whatever the reason, my fear left me that day, I flew in the small plane and felt completely comfortable, wishing I had brought a decent camera with me to take aerial shots of the beautiful, lake-riddled farmland of southern Minnesota.

Water
Speaking of lakes, my greatest life-long fear is that of swimming. Or rather, drowning. I can specifically trace it back to when I was around 8 years old, playing with my siblings and cousins at an oxbow lake not far from our farm. I recall that the older kids were water skiing while younger ones such as myself splashed about in the shallow water along the shore.

One rowdy cousin, about 5 years my elder, decided it would be a great idea to push me down without warning and hold me underwater. The whole thing probably only lasted a few seconds but it felt like an eternity as I sucked in a lung-full of water and believed I was dying.

I realize this sort of thing happens to people all of the time without persistent psychological damage, but for some reason I’ve never been able to overcome the massive fight-or-flight, soul-crushing fear that overwhelms me when my head’s headed beneath the surface.

My wife — whom, by the way, I nearly drowned once while trying to save myself from a watery grave — convinced me I should at least take a swim lesson to help me get a little more comfortable in the water. A couple of weeks ago I finally caved and signed on for two private swim lessons at the local YMCA.

The instructor was very polite and patient with me, and I tried every technique and flotation aid she offered — floaties, flippers, back float, you name it. But as soon as I felt my head going under, that horrifying fear rose up and blanketed everything in black. No reassurance was calming. I suggested to my instructor that perhaps I should sit down with a psychiatrist a few times before coming back for another lesson, and she agreed.

Earth
Back on dry ground, an entirely different fear has gripped me in the past month — that of my eldest daughter completing driver’s ed and receiving her permit.

To be honest, I’ve enjoyed being her adjunct driving instructor immensely. Like many farm kids, I didn’t have the experience of suddenly, as a teen, being taught how to drive from scratch; instead I’d been driving a tractor since I was little and wasn’t really fazed when put behind the wheel of a sedan in driver’s education class.

Having the opportunity to ride with her as she makes the rookie mistakes — driving too slow or too fast, barely missing swapping paint with parked cars — while honing her skills truly is a blessing, although she may beg to differ when I’m shouting “STOP! STOP!” and slamming on imaginary passenger-side brakes as she fails to yield the right-of-way on a left-hand turn.

So while her fear is failing the driving test next spring, mine is that her passing it will mean she’s that much closer to gaining the freedom of adulthood, to leaving home for good, and not being there to hug her mother and me goodnight before heading upstairs to bed.

Fired
If I were a motivational speaker by trade, I’d have been fired long ago. Those folks tell you to always challenge your fears, to never back down and never give up no matter who or what stands in your way. But I’m a hard-wired realist. My philosophy is more along the lines of W.C. Fields’, who once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”

Believing you can accomplish everything you dream of, or conquer every fear, sounds good in theory ... in a Disney princess movie sort of way. But every once in a while that thing holding you back, that fear itself, may be trying to tell you something.

Like, “approach the obstacle from another angle.” Or, “pick a different fight.”

Or perhaps, “just go buy a few more floaties, why don’tcha.”

        

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