Fear Of
Fear Of
Things are pretty great. Really. I find that working less and pursuing joy in my professional and personal life is far more gratifying than grinding away at a 9 to 5 which causes more stress than happiness. But, it would be insincere to say that everything is perfect. In fact, I still have some stress. I still have a fear of the unknown.
Maybe, I shouldn’t say unknown. Even in financial independence, there is a drive to create deeper meaning and purpose in daily existence. My worries about the future are much more granular and well defined than the previous paragraph suggests.
I know exactly what I am afraid of.
FOMO
I have a fear of missing out. I know. How embarrassing! Yet, true none the less. There are definitely times when I see the world moving forward and feel that I am not. This manifests itself in some interesting ways.
Business. Although I don’t need the money, I still get envious and jealous when I hear about all the unique businesses, side hustles, and real estate ventures that people are getting into. Not just a passing interest, but true envy. I want to be a mover and shaker just like them.
Creation. So many great new books are being written by my peers. New blogs being written. Podcasts that are changing the world. I fear that I am being left behind.
Travel. Geoarbitrage. I don’t have the time nor inclination to travel too extensively. Yet that doesn’t stop me from looking longingly at everyone else’s adventures. I know I don’t want to do these things, and yet I feel the urge none the less.
Relevance
No matter how happy I am that I am no longer working full time, being a physician gave me a sense of importance. As I leave that identity behind, I have a fear of being irrelevant. I had a prepackaged sense of identity and purpose wrapped into my career. Although the career didn’t always feel good, the sense of responsibility and meaning did.
Now don’t get me wrong. Being a father, spouse, and son carries its own sense of joy. Yet, I have to admit that I always longed for more. Some reason outside the neat bundle of filial relationships.
When you reach a certain age, you start to realize that you no longer expect to change the planet in the big and wordly ways you thought you would in your youth. There is, however, a wish that your goodness will somehow create a ripple that will travel a little farther than your small enclosed area of the pond.
Financial independence does not create relevance. It just doesn’t.
Failure
And I have a fear of failure. Still. After all the successes I can count in my life. After reaching financial independence. After becoming a spouse and a father. After graduating medical school and residency. After building several successful business.
I have come to accept that I only feel as good as my last success. And put in a more depressing way, I am one failure away from being miserable. No matter how much I laud failing as a learning tool. That doesn’t necessarily mean it feels good.
Final Thoughts
Financial independence and half retirement are as good as I was hoping them to be. Yet I still have a fear of not being more. FOMO. Worries about relevance. And a stubborn and persistent anxiety about failure remain.
They certainly don’t stop me from living my life.
But I would be dishonest if I denied their presence.
This is why the Declaration of Independence talks about guaranteeing all men the “pursuit of happiness,” not “happiness.” It’s an elusive goal. But maybe that’s the point.
Definitely elusive but possible.
If you measure yourself by comparing to another, you are doomed to tying to live their narrative. Living someone else’s narrative is such a big waste of time. Living in the “projected future” is also a big waste of time. The projected future is nothing like reality, so FOMO is really trying to make a fantasy real. Are you so rich you can afford to waste all this time?
In short. Yes. Without the worries of day to day wealth gathering, my mind is free to take on such bad habits.
In that case you have no reason to fear, your cup runneth over, and your fear is merely an aspect of the projection. My cup runneth over as well but I have better things to do than fear. I’m old and no longer have the time to waste.
Doc G , I truly appreciate the honesty and vulnerability of today’s post. I believe that when we air these fears , we can take a look at them in a different way; by hearing how our own words sound and pursuing where that can lead us into a private personal conversation.
This actually happened to me today. I found myself telling someone about an extremely bad experience I had in the recent past , at the hands of another . And in my re-telling, I privately understood what the real factors of this bad experience were. And why it still bothered me . I also, saw my role in it. For us both, this is not easy stuff. But, working through it ….TREASURE!! I know this to be true!
Yes. Sometimes putting words to our fears gives us both better power over them and understanding of them.
It’s like you crawled into my 4am insomniac brain and took notes! This exactly, perfectly describes my current experience (having left hospital medicine and gone to part time, office only, gynecology 9 months ago). Things are AMAZING… but if my clinic isn’t packed, if I’m not running the entire day, if there’s the slightest pause- I have a mini panic attack. Although I am now blissfully only working 2-3 days a week (no call, no nights, no weekends) my workaholic self is only happy if I’m crazy busy during those few work days. (What if the GP’s stop referring? What if I can’t fill my clinics without OB?) It’s nonsense. There is a huge stack of referrals at all times. Yet doubt creeps in.
Re: relevance. Fear of being irrelevant has been a big issue for sure. Happily, I have discovered a whole new world with my IUC YouTube channel, with comments and thank you’s from viewers around the world watching my videos about contraception. Not saving lives at 4 am, but more than happy to be helping women in India, Europe, South Africa, all over the US…. (the same feeling you must get with this blog!)
Great post!
-Kristina
Redefining relevance seems important. Especially for docs when we leave the “life saving” roles.