Fear

As I trudge ahead in this journey to unjobbing, I am coming to terms with fear, what causes fear, and the effect that fear has in my life.  Fear, like any emotion, can be a catalyst for good or evil.  So, I am going to just play with this idea a little bit and see if anything comes up.  Warning, this might not make any sense.

Let’s start with a rather easy scenario: drawing a picture.  I have at my desk a stack of blank paper (well blank on one side – misprinted actuarial exhibit fodder on the back).  I have pens.  But, I am often hesitant to draw in fear of a “bad” drawing.  Bad in quality, not bad as in evil mind you.  I wonder how many drawings and scribbles have not come to be because of fear.

Now fear can come in many different flavors.

How about fear of rejection?  I have mentioned that I have a long history of rejection when it comes to music.  I currently have about six hours of music and compositions out on a social site with several hours of completed music offline.  I have written tons of music and continue to write tons more.  But I don’t promote it.  Why?  Fear of rejection.  For me, to present a piece of art to someone is, in a way, to present a part of my soul.  When I throw it out there and it is rejected, it hurts.  It is much easier emotionally to just create for those that appreciate it, such as my family, and not chance that rejection.  At least in the short run.

What about fear of regret?  I mean that is fueling this whole blog – I fear that I will regret the decision to not give blogging a shot.  Or unjobbing.  I don’t want to be on my deathbed regretting the decision not to try something because I was afraid of failure.  There is fear again, but it’s on the other side as my adversary.

Ah, the fear of failure.  In an effort to mitigate regret and possible unfulfilment at the end of my days, I need to take a chance.  Let’s take for example my novel.  Ohh – better yet – leaving the corporate world for unjobbing.  What if in spite of my best efforts, nothing takes off and I am left with the feeling that I wasted great swaths of my life working in a cube and I never succeeded in finally breaking free. 

If I look at it objectively and practically, it isn’t a bad thing if I worked the rest of my life as an actuary.  I provide well for my family and children.  I have set hours and can plan vacation.  I can give a lot of money charitably to others to make the world a better place.  Really, it’s not that bad of a deal.  Why risk losing it?  Why try and possibly live north of destitution being an artist and introduce a whole host of other fears.  Wouldn’t it be better to just give up the whole unjobbing thing?

Which leads into the fear of unfulfilment.  I think that every single human being strives for fulfilment in this life in the way they feel is best.  For many, they look for tangible things in this world to find fulfilment – pleasures, riches, honors, power and the like.  For a few, they look to intangible things – love, friendship, family, a spiritual connection with God.  At the end of my life, will I happily go into that dark night, or will there be a pang of unfulfilment?

So now we have a conflict:  pursue unjobbing in pursuit of fulfilment (note that neither of those is certain) or forego that risk for the certain (or near certain) life of remaining in corporate America.  In economics, any possible profit from a decision needs to be compared to the cost of choosing not to pursue another decision.  To evaluate the decision to forego unjobbing and to stick to being an actuary, I have to estimate what I am giving up.  In terms of material wealth and the like, it’s hard to say: there are tons of people that just scrape by unjobbing.  On the flip side, for those that make it big, there is a possibility of significant wealth.  In the end, I don’t care about making it big, I just want to provide.

A character from one of the Redwall books my
daughter requested me to sketch for her.

But the real kicker is this:  by attempting to unjob, I am giving life to ideas that would not otherwise come to life.  If I do not try blogging, or novel writing, or making music, or anything other than being a good little cog in the corporate machinery – I could miss out on an opportunity to change the world.  Why change the world?  Because it can be a much better place.  And if more people took a chance to make it a better place it would be worth it.

I think that I gave myself a pep talk somewhere in there and I do feel a little better about taking on this journey.  I still have my own personal boundaries to tear down to go forward, but I feel more resolved.

I’m going to go pick up a pen and draw something.

God bless,

Sven