OPINION: My Unconscious Bias

In considering what to write this week, I recalled how upsetting it is to me that so much of the world is driven by fear. Whether it’s fear of insects, fear of birds, fear of small spaces, or whatever someone’s phobia might be, I find it distressing that so many of my fellow humans are motivated by fear instead of fearlessness.

Save the angry postcards. Yes, I do respect that not everyone is fearless, and they probably have a very good reason for their phobia. We are all in different stages of development and I honor that. I myself had a fear of stinging insects for many years, and well into my adulthood. I realized (after a long-time yoga practice) that not all bees and wasps are evil, and I realized, hey, I’m WAY bigger than they are.

Also, I’m not allergic to stinging insects so if you are, then you have a medical reason to fear them (or at the very least worry about them).

I, however, being a person that is not motivated by fear, have realized that this is my unconscious bias. I just don’t get why grown people are driven by fear when we are finally at the place in life (adulthood) where we can make our own choices. As St. Francis said in his famous prayer, we can identify the things we can affect, realize the ones we can’t, and hopefully have the wisdom to know the difference.

The thing I see people worry about and fear the most are the “what ifs” and the maybes. This gets in the way of clear thinking and stokes the fear of failure, fear of ostracism, fear of not being seen as capable, and even the irrational fear of being seen as an imposter – even though you definitely are NOT an imposter because you cannot “fake it ‘til you make it.” If you made it, it’s because you worked for it and earned it.

My unconscious bias gets in the way of understanding other people sometimes because I just don’t get what is holding them back. I can’t understand their fear of acting or speaking up. Some of this is tied to the fear of losing what we already have – fear and the unwillingness to risk go hand in hand. Why risk what I have when there is no guarantee it will work? Why risk being seen as different? Why risk leaving my comfort zone?

The problem with fear informing our decision to risk is this: you will never have more than you have right now. You will never have the experience of taking a risk that doesn’t work and all the learning you get from it. You will never see what the world COULD be if you would take a chance and go in a different direction.

Fear holds us all back, both individually and as a community. Whether it is fear of our differences, fear of realizing we are more alike than we like to admit, or fear of exclusion, imagine a world where we are not motivated by our fear, but made stronger by overcoming it.

One of my favorite “go to” quotes is The Litany Against Fear from the novel “Dune” by Frank Herbert, because it pretty much says it all:

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. When the fear is gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”