The Upside of Fear

Halloween aside, it's there for a reason.

When I give parenting talks, I often discuss how fear can hold us back as parents. Our fear-driven instincts cause us to intervene in situations involving our kids in ways that can undermine the development of empathy, resilience, and self-esteem. Also, fear causes adults to do totally irrational things like believe they have found hidden Satanic messages in kids’ artistic creations, which is just… wow. Sometimes people need to chill the f*ck out.

But fear, of course, evolved for a reason, and sometimes it serves us extremely well. Over the past 24 hours, I had three scary experiences — of increasing intensity — that illustrated to me that fear is an emotion that can give us essential focus and clarity in difficult situations and that can remind us of what really matters. So as much as I often push back against fear, this morning I am very grateful for it.

Here’s the story of what happened.