My life has been filled with many misfortunes, most of which never happened.”
                                                                                                          – Mark Twain

Terror is actually so rare in my life that I have to go looking for it: in Stephen King’s chilling tales, in spooky movies, in rollercoaster rides. There is something exhilarating about the rush, the catharsis of these fancied brushes with dread and disaster, and a kind of smug Indiana Jones sense of joyous triumph when the threatened catastrophe doesn’t happen.

As I grow older, I have become much more careful. I look with increasing wonder at the youthful risks I used to take. I am astonished at the reckless abandon with which some of my fellow humans frequently tempt terminality: skydiving, climbing sheer rock walls, making right turns from the left lane, and indulging in casual, unprotected sex.

I think I understand the thrill, the cleansing rush of these behaviors, but I am also acutely aware of their potentially impossible high cost. I truly love and prize my life, and while I recognize our human tenacity by clinging to it, I also now know how fragile it can be.

On the other hand, as I continue to age, I find that I am less fearful than I used to be, less likely to wallow in fantasies of star-crossed outcomes, more inclined to give equal time to the prospect of a favorable end result. This unexpected, more relaxed outlook comes from the growing realization that my fears are nearly always in the future, that my apprehensions and anxieties have always been about things that have not yet happened.

Burdened, as we all are, with lively and vivid imaginations, it is the possibility of what might happen that generates my trembling, terror, and sometimes panic; it is never something that is happening right now.

Fear can be beneficial: warning me not to get too close to the precipice, keeping me attentive while handling a sharp knife, causing me to avoid that deserted, dark alley at night. But my apprehension is always about “later,” not about “now.” I haven’t fallen yet, my hand is still uncut, and I haven’t yet been set upon by thugs.

Fear can be lifesaving by providing me with the adrenaline to run from the saber-toothed tiger or to snatch a toddler from an oncoming car. But upon reflection, it isn’t the tiger I fear; it is the pain I would suffer if the tiger caught me and started tearing my body apart. It isn’t the speeding automobile; it is the anticipation of the sadness and loss that would follow the needless death of a child.

I think about the fears that have cluttered my past: anxiety while being wheeled into an operating room, anguish that a loved one might leave me, dread that a parent or sibling might die, trepidation that I might lose a job.

I have lived long enough to survive all those things.

I realize that my fears were not about those events, but my own fantasies about what might result from them: that I might die, that I might not be able to make it on my own, that I could be without enough money.

Yet none of those things has happened!

Courage is that quality of mind that enables us to meet danger with firmness and valor. I’m not talking here about the courage that comes from facing extreme difficulty and proceeding anyway. I am talking about a slowly dawning realization – based on experience – that most of the deepest apprehensions of my past never happened. Therefore, shouldn’t I start to view threats to my well being with some equanimity? Shouldn’t I consider what it is I really fear, and bear in mind that it is mere fantasy about a possible future outcome that is causing my dread? Since fear is always about something in the future, I need to remember that the future exists only in my imagination.
Not all fear is groundless. Sometimes it is extremely useful. But I have spent so much of my energy avoiding imagined pain and restricting my life by reacting to things that haven’t happened that I’m ready to try something different now.

Franklin Roosevelt taught us, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” I used to understand that idea to mean, “Don’t add to the threat by fearing it.” Now I see it as meaning, “We have nothing to fear; it’s only a figment, our imagining of what might happen but probably won’t.”

Hank Basayne is a San Franciscan who wishes you a fearless New Year!