"One of the many great pieces of advice my dad has given me," Parks and Rec actress Rashida Jones told The Off Camera Show in 2016, "is to make decisions based on love, not fear. And that's applicable all the time — when you're standing on the precipice of a decision, there is always this moment of 'but if I do this I'm going to mess up other people's feelings about me, or I'm going to change this relationship' and that is not the place to make a decision from."
Jones' words here represent something important I've struggled to come to terms with in my coming-of-age years, which was that I always felt indescribably afraid. It's not as if I had a specific phobia or source of anxiety, but just that getting up and dressed in the morning, having a conversation with somebody, or even making a post on social media seemed to be an act of putting my own self-worth on trial. I've come to realize that I wasn't alone on this, in fact, this is the way many of my own peers are still living our lives well into adulthood.
Living in a culture of fear
One thing I feel that we can all empathize with in this generation is that we are all desperately trying to make critical changes to our lives to maximize our well-being, without really knowing how. There's a whole market for self-care out there — face masks, bath bombs, Netflix, indulgent foods, and other material things being sold to us, in hopes that it'll teach us to live better, more efficient lives. Don't get me wrong; those things are great as short-term stress relievers, but I often find myself wishing there was more I could do to build a greater foundation of self-love and actualization.
The truth is, we live in a culture of fear, where we have been taught to tiptoe around what makes us passionate in favor of what will draw the least amount of attention to us. Sometimes, fear seems to come in the most inconspicuous, mundane disguises — something as simple as working all night out of fear that you're going to fail, rather than out of a joy for learning and expanding your perspective. Sometimes I've noticed that I feel compelled to get involved out a fear that I'll seem unmotivated to my peers, rather than out of an actual desire to pursue my goals.
Think about it, how many times have you gone out for the night only out of a lingering fear that you're "missing out," instead of going out with the exciting possibility of meeting new people and making valuable memories? This even has shown itself in something as basic as what we consume; are we washing down coffee with Redbull because we enjoy the taste and nourishment, or out of fear that we won't finish that paper by midnight if we don't fill ourselves with caffeine first?
This hardly seems like a pressing issue, until it starts to creep into our relationships with others, ourselves, and even the world. This generation seems to chase one another down hopelessly to avoid being alone with ourselves — through dating apps, empty text messages, and social media, we seem to have forgotten how to spend time with ourselves first before giving it all up for friendships and love.
We have our friends edit down our text messages for us, out of a desperate fear of saying the wrong thing, or seeming like we love too much or too little. There's so much fear in each of our conversations, fear out of being rejected or ignored, that communication has now seemed to be packaged with extreme frustration out of default.
On a larger scale, this has led us to be afraid of speaking up against injustice in our current political climate out of a fear that our voices don't matter in the noise pollution of opinions on the internet. If we were working from a genuine place of love for humanity, and empathy for our fellow people, would those concerns even matter? Wouldn't we be quicker to call out prejudice and hatefulness at the very moment we see it?
People are becoming more and more afraid to use their power as an individual, which is propelling even our nation's decisions out of a place of fear over love.
How to make the switch
What eventually happens when making decisions out of fear, is that we begin to live a life of persistently trying to one-up ourselves. Nothing is ever enough when fear is present. Every accomplishment is followed with "Okay, now what? How do I do even better from here?"
Every bit of tension we're seeing in politics, advertising, and even in what our peers post online is telling us to be afraid of who and what we are. We're a generation growing up in a world where unforgivable insults being carelessly thrown at entire groups of people has become just another morning on the news, and this seems to have taught us to unconsciously hate ourselves and search for the remedy for that hate elsewhere.
So now, instead of reflecting on why we want the things that we want, I've found that many people my age are pursuing things that they believe others around them will want for them because at the end of the day all we want is to be loved and accepted. Then we ask ourselves, "Why can't the love and acceptance just come from me? Why can't I be confident enough to fearlessly go after what I want?"
Life is a series of decisions and the easiest way to love ourselves to begin every decision with love itself.
Of course, it's much easier said than done. It takes mindfulness, stopping after every crossroad to ask yourself why you chose the path that you did. It takes reflection, seeing where the "why" has led you and if you're content with the outcome. And above all, it takes gratitude, because it's hard to cultivate a loving source of decision-making if you're not already grateful for the choices you've made thus far.
I challenge each of you to spend a little extra time alone with yourselves this week, put away your phone and reflect in a quiet, peaceful place, long enough to see where your own commitments are coming from. Is there anything each of us can do to make sure we are getting the most joy and opportunity from our own lives? How can we make our intentions so good that they improve our relationships and the way in which we treat the world?
If not, what can you do to make yourself less afraid?
