Fear Will Not Be My Style

dread is so stupid

My brother just graduated from high school, and all the festivities surrounding his graduation reminded me of my own, four years earlier. I remember becoming so fatigued after answering the questions “Where are you going for college?” and “What do you plan to study?” for the ten-thousandth time. I just wanted to put a sign around my neck, reading “CU, Boulder, and journalism, I think.” Enough already!

Recently, I’ve been facing a ton of the same kind of questions, although this time, the stakes are visibly higher, and I see the worry in people’s eyes (the kindly concern for a college graduate, with a Communication degree, venturing into an anemic labor market and softening economy). “Congratulations! What are you going to do now?” I’m going to get my teach on. Watch out. And get the hell out of my way.

(oh, and I can’t believe how many people have never even heard of TFA – what a shame! But people sure do know the movie Dangerous Minds.)

My friend, Darren, will also be a Teach For America corps member. He has been assigned physics in Atlanta (don’t worry – he majored in physics in college!). Darren has a blog too, and I read one of his recent entries about a question he’s been asked a lot recently: Are you scared?

His answer was brilliant. His mindset is precisely what will allow him to succeed despite the shadows. Darren writes:

“People want to know if I’m scared of moving to a new place where I don’t know anyone, scared of living in a dangerous – or black – community, or scared of facing a classroom of kids who don’t care. Sure I’m scared. Do you have any idea how many names I’m going to have to learn!? It’s terrifying. Usually that response temporarily fends off the question with a short laugh, but what people really want to know is if I’m scared for my safety… I’m well aware that I will likely be teaching, and perhaps living, in a dodgy neighborhood. The fact is, how can I allow myself to be scared when I know that my students have grown up there? If a child can grow up in such a hazardous environment, I refuse to be scared as a grown adult.”

Darren obviously has a kindred spirit in President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper… The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Something is only as scary as you allow it to be. Fear only has as much power over you as you permit. Replace fear with a more productive emotion – like alertness, curiosity, empathy, humility. Those emotions lead you to do something, to take action. Fear only leads you to fear more. And things get scarier and scarier when you don’t take action – it’s like a paralysis.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression here – it is dangerous and senseless to remain naïve, and the situations I will face next year will be anything but rosy. I don’t advocate blind optimism or foolish risk-taking. What I advocate is not being overly-dramatic about the hunger, violence, and desperation I might see. There will be all of those things, to be sure. I can be plain about that. But there will also be celebration, humor, happy coincidence, rebirth, and kindness – if I expect to see it, I will find it. If I find it, I can propagate it.

Human beings are quite resilient, even moreso if we openly acknowledge our resiliency and tap into it consciously. I refuse to be brought down by my circumstances, and I refuse to allow my students to slip away into the excuse of systematic oppression. The system oppresses, absolutely. And there are ways out of it. Sometimes we don’t need fancy analysis of a situation, since that can sound like excuse-making and, more often, can lead to inertness (due to the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness). We just need to see the crappiness, see how bad it sucks, and say, “Well, onward anyway. We’ll get through it. We make the path by walking.”

Don’t dwell and don’t dread. Stay in the moment, because fear cannot exist in the moment.

Really, here’s the thought that captures it for me: People will still have birthday parties.