Fear: A Never-Ending Cycle

Death and war are rational fears, but I do not fear them as I have yet to encounter them. My greatest fears are those that I must face regularly, those that are always in my thoughts and recur in a perpetual cycle. I am afraid of public speaking, of getting bad grades, and of disappointing my parents. These fears are all essentially rooted in my greatest fear: that of making mistakes.

Speaking to a group exposes the speaker to the vulnerability of being ridiculed for making a mistake: saying or doing something unexpected, strange, or “wrong.” In a practiced presentation, it is not the content that makes me vulnerable, but rather my tendency to stray from my practiced “perfection” by making an error in my speech, especially under the pressure of expectant eyes and ears. Contrastingly, spontaneous public speaking exposes me both to the mistakes mentioned above as well as to expressing an illogical idea that has not been well thought out. Evidently, the latter form of public speaking poses a greater fear to me, but both are in essence the fear of making a mistake.

My fear for public speaking is based in the fear of making a mistake in front of others; this could be an audience of classmates, but could also be a group of strangers. In the case of the latter, this fear may be slightly irrational in that the minor mistake of stuttering or pronouncing a word incorrectly would leave an insignificant impression on a stranger who I may never meet again or at the least, would unlikely be significant to my future. Contrastingly, grades are known not only to my parents and me, but also to scholarship granters, and more importantly, university application reviewers. The significance of university to me, therefore, makes my fear of receiving unsatisfactory grades extremely rational. Being wrong on tests or assignments results in lower grades; even the smallest mistake has an impact on marks. The lower my grade falls, the greater my fear is of making more mistakes. Therefore, my fear of making mistakes and of receiving poor grades are reciprocal in that either one causes the other.

Mistakes that cost future opportunities, such as attending my desired university, are terrifying. But in some instances, the fear of making mistakes that disappoint my parents, who work so hard to help me succeed, is even greater. The fact that I have never received a grade low enough for them to express their disappointment makes me worry about the consequences of this were to occur. Being the cause of disappointment is a greater burden than being the receiver of disappointment; from the rare cases when I have disappointed my parents, not for the reason of grades, I know that disappointing them demoralizes me. However, I would deem this fear as slightly irrational because I know that my success is not the only reason for the hard work they have put into me; they must genuinely care about me and want to see me happy. Despite the slight irrationality of my fear of disappointing my parents, it is still justified by the simple fact that I want to see my parents happy and disappointing them would surely counter that desire.

I am truly afraid of making mistakes; although my reasons are not always justified, the rational reasons I have ultimately outweigh the irrational. Consequentially, the fear is more of a cause than an inhibitor of my success. My lack of public speaking skills is surely the worst consequence of my fear, but the beneficial results include my constant strive for perfection which results in better grades and greater success in all my endeavours. This desire for perfection is then also a cause for my fear of making mistakes. The cyclical nature of this desire and this fear is essentially the basis for my success; therefore, I do not foresee nor wish for my deep-seated fear of making mistakes to ever go away.