Fear is the focus on the possible loss of something dear. The loss could be of life and limb, the respect of friends or simply a treasured possession. Usually, a fearing person currently has the dear thing. In other words, someone scared of dying must be alive and someone fearing losing respect must have some.
These dear and treasured things are usually sources of joy and engender love. We love basking in our friends’ respect or having our possessions reflect back our care and attention.
So if each fear has a possible loss and the loss would be of something we currently have and love, then each fear is connected to a love. A fear of death can be a reminder of the enjoyment of life’s moments. A fear of loss of respect can remind us of earning and enjoying that respect.
Focusing on the love behind the fear can make daily life more fun.
When I have an appointment, I often fear being late:
- “I don’t want to be late”
- “Being late makes me look incompetent in front of my friends”
- “Looking incompetent makes me feel terrible”
- “I don’t want to feel terrible”
- “Daaah, better not be late…!”
But instead, I could love being on time:
- “I don’t want to be late”
- “I love being on time”
- “I’m usually on time”
- “I can be on time today and that will be awesome.”
So the technique is to “expand the thing you love” rather than “avoid the thing you fear”. I’ve had a lot of fun applying this technique and I hope you do too.
Bonus: Loving From Zero
Now, let’s take this deeper.
Why do we fear in the first place? I think it is to help us mentally explore what actions we could take on something important.
Normally, our love of things doesn’t create deep thinking the way fear does. But I think we can create a more powerful love that would help us think deeply. The way to do that is something I call “Loving from Zero”. Let me explain.
Fear is usually focused on abject loss.
- “If I come home late, my dad will kill me.”
- “If I don’t get the project done, I won’t get the raise… I might even get fired.”
Thus fear is often done “to zero”, ie comparing the current situation to having nothing. This is quite motivating.
Love is often focused on more minor differences in the moment:
- “I really like the way my room puts me at ease.”
- “It felt so nice to go somewhere for Valentine’s Day.”
- “I like getting stuff done at work.”
I think the trick to powerful love is comparing having nothing to the current situation. In essence, reversing the fear comparison above. Happy people I know do this all the time.
- “I hope we land the contract, but even if not, this is better than being in my home country.”
- “Spare some change? Thanks. How am I doing? I’m just happy to be breathing, man.”
This “Loving from Zero” makes the mind just as insightful as fear would, but with added benefits. Focusing on “what I have loved” rather than “what I stand to lose” lets people be more relaxed and flexible and thus keep perspective. Also, I find it’s often easier to see others’ needs which allows for a more balanced solution.
I’ve found starting with fear, seeking what’s loved and exploring the depth of that love is a powerful thought chain. Thanks for your time and comments.
difficult not to think in terms of ultimate outcomes. and unfortunately, the most salient facts for most of us are ultimate outcomes. there’s a lot of love out there that keeps you going in an emotional sense, but maybe can’t provide for physical needs.
True, outcomes are very important and focusing on past positive emotions isn’t everything. The focus on things we have enjoyed would just be a spice to add into the mix of the decision making process, methinks. With love or fear, one does need to get very specific about options and needs to reach the right conclusion to provide for oneself. Thanks for the comment!
Reflecting on your post makes me think about some of my past errors in handling professional and personal situations where I was very quick to give critical feedback. Most of these situations resulted in a negative vibe, with quite the opposite effect than intended. I.e. rejection of the feedback as opposed to acceptance and a commitment to making improvement based on the feedback. And it comes right down to what you described D$. What I can trace this to is a hardline philosophy of “Be the best you can be, always.” Using your idea of “zero love”, the zero ground of not being the best you can be right now, is probably being dead or incapacitated or resourceless or something to that effect. What it comes down to is giving people credit first for what’s most important before going into the finer details. Let me attempt to break this down.
In a structure of giving credit for doing something. Let’s take an example of going to the gym to exercise:
Out of a total 105/100 points awarded for total Chuck Norris experience at the gym, e.g.
8 hours of sleep prior to gym: 5/5 points
Had a great healthy and energizing breakfast: 5/5 points
Went to the gym: 50/50 points
Did a proper warm up: 5/5 points
Stretched muscles: 10/10 points
Worked on therapy for stabilizer muscles: 10/10 points
Nailed your sets: 10/10 points
New Personal best record: 5/5 points
Made eye contact with hot girl, got her number: 5/5 points
Total: 105/100 points, Chuck Norris status
OK so you decided that scoring 100 points every time is a little bit out of your level. Let’s take a look at what a more average situation might be.
5 hours of sleep prior to gym: 3/5 points
Skipped breakfast: 0/5 points
Went to the gym: 50/50 points
2 minute warm up: 2/5 points
Stretched for 2 minutes: 5/10 points
Skipped therapy: 0/10 points
Got through your sets: 10/10 points
No new records: 0/5 points
Avoided eye contact with hot girl on elliptical: 0/5 points
Total: 70/100 points, C Average
Now if I were to look at this situation, I could be critical about Average man’s score of 70/100. However, let’s put this into perspective of REAL AVERAGE man who fails to show up to the gym at all 0/50. That means that none of the other points would be available except for maybe the sleep and the breakfast. OK 10/100 points. MASSIVE FAIL.
The moral of this story is 2 fold. First, When giving love/feedback, make sure you give credit for people showing up. I think that gives people credit for not doing the opposite, which is not showing up, (not attending your party, not going to the gym, not saying hi to the hot chick). Putting yourself out there on the line is half the battle. Give whole and hearty credit and encouragement to support that which matters the most. Once that has been established and genuinely communicated, part 2 is when we can go back to the rubric to see where the next set of major points could be won, with easy investment. In our case here, adding therapy or breakfast back in would be the easiest things to improve upon. That would take our gym goer straight back into the 85 range or B range. Not bad improvement.
And this is my take on applying “Loving from Zero.” Next time around, what to do when you get past showing up all the time. Tales of the average employee who show up, was printer toners, and just don’t add much value, or at least comic relief.
This mental model could/will exalt people toward creativity, sympathy, progress.
• “I believe in you and your intentions are good.”
• ”I believe in myself and value my intentions.”
Maybe there is a difference between critique which looks cute and French, and criticism which sounds analytical and sometimes condemning. Critiquing ourselves could be joyful and humorous — but being critical to ourselves or others is kind of fucking rude, so let’s stop that.
Ambert, thanks for the detailed comment, I whole heartedly agree! You’re totally right in comparing the “real average” to “showing up” is what I mean by “loving from zero”. Giving credit for how far we did make it is definitely a great pre-step to examining how to improve. I think this keeps people from getting discouraged too, as they get points for what they did right instead of always hearing what’s wrong.
Stepherly, I also wholeheartedly agree with validating another’s intentions and also one’s own. One of my new sayings is “Everyone is mostly right”, which I think is part of what you’re saying here, at least as far as their intentions go. I think starting from there gets the dual benefits of 1) insight into where the other person is coming from and 2) what *works* about the current/suggested situation that needs to be preserved in any new plan.
Thanks for your comments guys!
I love this idea of “Loving from Zero”. I will be practicing it this week.