This is the first of a series of guest posts that I’m going to be running on alternate Thursdays. I want to bring in other bloggers or even non-bloggers that will get you lovely people thinking differently. Some will be funny, some instructional, some bizarre (hopefully) and some just good old fashioned interesting. I hope you’ll welcome the authors by checking out their sites and maybe stirring the pot by leaving a comment.
We kick off today with a guy that is slightly unhinged (in a good way), slightly unorthodox and more than slightly amusing, Mr. Johnny B Truant.
Some of you may know Tim Brownson. If you don’t, he’s this guy who coaches and has a cactus on his website and probably (though by no means definitely) uses the weird British phrase “Bob’s your uncle.” He’s also the guy whose blog you’re currently reading. Tim is an interesting guy. And by “interesting,” I mean that he’s the kind of guy who will let you guest post on his blog even if your subject matter is wildly different from his own.
Fortunately, I like Tim enough to at least give lip service to the idea of writing on-topic. And by “like,” I mean that I won’t throw tomatoes at him if I see him in person, mainly because I only have so many tomatoes and want to make a salad later.
What’s more, I actually really love self-improvement. I’ve seen Tony Robbins in person, I know about NLP, and I’m in a few mastermind groups and have a few mentors. So when Tim begged me to write this guest post (and by “begged,” I mean “reluctantly allowed”), it occurred to me that I actually have something to say. Something that will hopefully resonate with all of you.
And that thing is: Fear Is Good!
I’m going out on a bit of a limb when I say that, because at this particular time in my life, I’m scared out of my mind quite often. It is not enjoyable. I wake up in a sweat, I have to talk myself down a few times a day, and my house is filled with little triggers that remind me that this economy is scary as all hell. I get nervous when the mail comes because there are bills; I get nervous when my wife is downstairs because that’s where she does the finances; I get nervous when I see these damn little star-shaped sticky notes that she attaches to things that tell me how much money we need for X or Y.
But in spite of that, I keep telling myself that fear is good. Because without fear, most of us don’t change course. We get comfortable, and we do what we’ve always done. And while “what we’ve always done” may be fine (after all, we’re not afraid), it’s not usually where we want to be.
Let me tell you a little story.
I graduated college in 1999 with a degree in genetics. (I also had a degree in philosophy, which opened all kinds of career opportunities in the bustling car-washing and coffee-shop-clerking industries.) So I did what simple inertia told me to do. I went to grad school to get my Ph.D.
Man did that job suck. I don’t want to offend anyone who choses that career path, but clearly only a retarded dead monkey that lost its higher cognitive functions to syphilis would find it worthwhile.
My task was to sort through literally hundreds of thousands of fruit flies (which I rendered unconscious with Batman knockout gas and/or Rohypnol) and look at them through a microscope to see which ones had white eyes. Then I took those flies and paired them with flies of the opposite sex and buried the rest in a smelly watery grave. The living flies were apparently drunk enough to mate and produced thousands of annoying bundles of joy, which I then counted and killed.
Now, I was phenomenally bad at this job. I routinely took two-hour coffee breaks and should have been fired and then stoned. My only salvation was that coffee, and I couldn’t even have it in peace because this Chinese woman kept stealing it and the flies kept dying in it. (Read that story here I mean, my mom says it’s funny.)
The job was terrible. AND it was over an hour commute each way. AND the pay was terrible. But it was a job, and it was what I knew, so I stayed with it.
So I started having panic attacks. They were the most horrible, frightening things ever. I couldn’t stay inside; I felt like the air was running out; I took two weeks off and stayed at home but still felt depressed and debilitated every day.
There was only one way out of the situation. It took me a while to see it, but I quit. I quit because I absolutely had to. As much as I hated that job, I would have stayed with it if it hadn’t become impossible to stay. I would have kept at it and moved up the chain and would still be doing a job I hated if I had had any other choice.
So: Thank God I was afraid. Thank God that situation became unbearable. Because today I work at home, doing things I enjoy. And I get paid a lot more, too.
Today, right now in history, a lot of us are afraid. I know I am… again. I’m not having panic attacks, but I am indeed once again in a situation that must change. I have no choice. And that’s okay, when I think about it, because even though I enjoy what I’m doing, it’s not what I’m supposed to be doing.
I’m supposed to be being funny for a living. I’m supposed to write some books, get on Oprah, then get off of Oprah, then try to keep Oprah from getting on me, and live my dream (after filing a restraining order against Oprah). And honestly? Without the fear, I would never be pushed hard enough to do it. I would keep doing what I was doing, which was good but not great.
I needed the fear to tell me to move along, that this stage had served its purpose. Fear is the bouncer saying, “Move along, move along… or I’ll hurt you.”
Don’t run from your fear. It’s here to serve you, and if you can quiet your mind enough to look at the situation from above, you may be able to see that. Listen to your fear, and decide what you need to do.
If you move wisely, you’ll look back years later, when you’re along your correct path, and you’ll thank your fear for giving you a shove.
——————
Johnny Truant writes the popular humor blog The Economy Isn’t Happening and is usually a lot funnier than this. This is what Johnny gets for writing outside of his niche. I mean, hell, you’d think he’d know that an introspective piece would be unfunny, but he didn’t. He’s actually borderline mentally incompetent. One time, he ate a wrench.
Link Love: On the opposite side of the coin (or is it?) is this very emotional, honest, brave and beautifuly written post by Kyeli
Phhpt. Truant is a hack.
Someone once told me that we do the things we’ve always done until it becomes too painful to continue. You’re right. Fear can be just the thing we need to change and improve our lives.
Johnny, this is great stuff! Funny and on-topic – you are a genius. I happen to know that even the fruit flies thought so ;-)
You are so right about fear being necessary and I am very glad that your fear led you to this crazy online blogging thing where we all get to know you as you’re meant to be. Not just as a fruit fly executioner.
Actually, I totally agree.
Not with Truant’s comment but with his attitude to fear. I keep going back into places where I have absolutely no money at all and the only reason for doing it is because when I get to that space, the fear somehow makes me think differently.
I notice that whenever I have money, when I’m working an analytics contract somewhere, I shove all the dreams of writing aside. When I totally run out, that’s when I start to think hard about what I really want. I can’t be complacent. That’s why I keep doing it. It’s to stop myself getting into a place where I’m comfortable, so I don’t do anything about my dreams.
Rocking stuff.
Fear is often what forces us to take action, although I have to remind myself sometimes that I want to act mindfully and with a purpose rather than react like a chicken with her head cut off.
Great guest post.
@ Truant – He wishes he were that far up the ladder.
Thanks to Tim for the nice switch-up using guest posters — (note to self: use a heading to distinguish between intro and post…) — and thanks to Johnny. B. Truant for the very smart/funny/pure-voiced bio at the end of the post.
All that stuff in between… I got a few tweaks but, I always do, and it was a sweet/funny read with a smart moral: fear of fruit flies is…. no, fear of goodness is greedy… no wait, I got it: get off your ass and do what you love. Thanks for the new POV, both of you.
Rock the fuck on, dude. The wrench made it.
Great post, Johnny! I love your style :D
Btw, I’m SO going to adapt and steal this line:
“Man did that job suck. I don’t want to offend anyone who choses that career path, but clearly only a retarded dead monkey that lost its higher cognitive functions to syphilis would find it worthwhile.”
Hey Johnny,
Great post! I loved the funny combined with a moral to the story. You really should seriously consider going into business as a zen master …. or a coach…. or a funny, zen master coach…. Oh, wait …Tim already does that. Never mind!
And you’re right. That is absolutely, bar none, by far the WORST job I have ever heard about. But it makes for a great story!
The part where the fear is saying “move along, this stage has served it’s purpose” hit me like a ton of bricks. That’s exactly where I have been for a while now – grieving, fearing, then making excuses that I’m healing. I’ve only been sitting in fear. In this week alone I have seen and learned so many things that actually motivate me to “move along” that I can hardly wait to get there. I saw something today that gave me the “THIS is what you want to do” thought. I haven’t had one so OUT LOUD before. Then I read this post. Right when it felt like “finally, someone said it”. It’s time to move along.
Thanks Johnny and thanks Tim.
Ah ha ha! I know all about the whole fruit fly malarky on account of I used to be married to a geneticist who had to get up in the middle of the night to go and collect virgins, poor love. Strangely, he liked the career so what does that make him??
Love the post. I could write one on why fibromyalgia is good – oh, hang on, I already did! It had the same effect on me, stopped me doing what I didn’t want to do and got me finding other options.
Thank you so much for posting this! It is so well said!
I am currently about to walk away from a job that I don’t really mind so much. It’s fine — good people, good work, but there’s no sizzle. So, I’m walking away and demanding more for myself. And when people say, “how could you do that?” I know that I have to — because to stay would be to make my decision based on fear. A fear of the unknown, of what would happen if I left. And that’s not how I want to live my life.
I’ve learned to test the fear and if it’s just me being all “ooh, new, hard work, scary, don’t go there” then I head straight in that direction.
So yeah, fear is really useful because I use it as a series of roadsigns.
hmmmmm, you don’t suppose this here Introspective Hilarity could be the result of some freakish chemical imbalance in-duced by heavy metal poisoning? [cogitate on it abit, the WRENCH dude! the WRENCH!]
just thinkin’ …
Thanks to all you guy for making Johnny welcome. I think a bit more abuse would have been nice, but we can’t have everything we want in life.
I do begrudgingly want to thank him for such a fine article and outshining me on my own bloody blog! I’ll be inviting him round for dinner at some stage so he can meet my wife and help her realize she picked the wrong guy.
BTW, if YOU like to write and I know many of you do and if you can match this quality and would like to get your name in front of literally a handful of people I’d love to hear from you.
Apologies to those of you whose links aren’t working. I’m having some technical difficulties not least of which is I haven’t got a friggin clue what I’m doing.
Haha, literally a handful of people. That’s pricelss.
On a side note, I start way too many sentences with “haha.” Pretty soon I’ll start using LOL a lot and saying “prolly.”
Johnny Truants last blog post..WAAAAAAAAASAAAAAAAP?!
Good points here. I have often thought that when the fear of staying where we are exceeds the fear of change, we’ll get up and move. Sometimes good things motivate us but I would dare to guess it is often the fear of bad things that get us off our butts!
Hi Johnnie – I’m not surprised that you hated that job. I hate fruit flies – they break into my house, steal my wine -then the little buggers drown in it. And it takes a long time to pick a couple of dozen fruit flies out of a bottle of wine.
I’ve had a few sucky things happen to me in the past and there were times when I was really scared. But I can see how that fear was necessary to make improvements in my life.
Cath Lawsons last blog post..Sleazy Sales & Why Your Neighbours Make You Poor
great post, Johnny
Having been afraid of fear for most of my life, I’ve started to really “get” how useful fear is. My post about “4 reasons why fear is a friend” on lifedev.net gives a few more ideas on why fear is so useful:
http://lifedev.net/2009/02/four-reasons-why-fear-is-a-creatives-friend/
So having made friends with my fear, I’ve been facing more of my fears, and recently I decided to face up to a BIG, irrational fear I’ve had for over 10 years:
http://www.mineyourresources.com/2009/02/my-big-irrational-fear/
CathDs last blog post..My Big, Irrational Fear…