My New Experiment: to be Free From Fear

Last month, my family and I did something slightly crazy, something out of character: for the first time in our lives, we chased a solar eclipse. We and our family friends joined several million Americans in this quest. For us, this meant driving 10 hours from the San Francisco Bay Area to a farmhouse in Madras, Oregon, where we rented a small plot of front yard for $75 for a single night. My wife, my two kids, and our friends the Sun family pitched our tents and camped out that night, savoring a night sky clear enough to show the Milky Way, but also cold enough to make my wife catch a cold (Central Oregon is high desert country). The next day, at 10:21 a.m., we watched as the moon engulfed the sun and revealed the white ring of light that was the sun's corona. Darkness covered the land. Stars came out. A chill descended over us all. Dozens of people around us hooted, howled, some even clapped.

Was this "totality" that lasted all of two minutes worth driving 10 hours there and 13 hours back (congestion)? Was this once-in-a-lifetime experience worth taking my kids out of their fourth day of school? If you ask my kids, they would say, Absolutely! Amazing! Unforgettable! Me? I'd say, yeah, it was an amazing sight to be sure, but I'm certainly never doing that again! Too much work for such a brief moment, a flicker of sublime beauty. It was cool, but it didn't change my life.

Or so I thought. Although I value these amazing experiences, I'm pretty clearheaded about them. Total solar eclipse? Done with that item on my bucket list. Check. Got some nice memories, some nice photos and videos. Next! But then something strange happened, something I can't explain. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but who knows, maybe not. The day after we got home (past midnight) from Oregon, I was having a one-on-one with my manager, and suddenly an idea popped into my head, an idea that had huge ramifications: I was living my life out of fear.

Wait, you say; isn't everyone living their life out of fear? Aren't we all? After all, fear can take many forms: job security, stage fright, sibling rivalry, stress, depression, jealousy—one could argue that fear is at the root of every negative emotion. Fear is the great great granddaddy of them all. And that makes my realization all the more important, because once I realized how much energy I was devoting to fear, I decided to stop feeding this insatiable monster. I told myself that I would consciously strive to live my life free from fear from now on.

Now, of course, that's easier said than done. Old habits die hard and all that. I wanted to make sure I remembered to be free from fear every day, so I wrote the words "I am free from fear" on a white board directly in front of my desk so I would see it whenever I look up from my monitor.

(What's this got to do with the Great American Eclipse of 2017? I don't really know. All I know is that the two events happened one day apart. Maybe you can tell me.)

So now, after almost a month of this eclipse-inspired resolution, has that idea changed my life so far? It's been very interesting. One powerful change has been that I feel less stressed out now. The nature of my job is inherently difficult to tackle or to measure, because my team's mission is to improve the customer support experience for internal software development tools in my company. We can't control many variables, like code written by people who have left the company, or teams that aren't familiar with each other's domains of expertise, or budget or technology limitations. And when you throw in my ambition, perfectionism, and impatient desire to make a difference, you can see why I get stressed out.

But since I made my resolution, I've come to realize that I have a choice about whether to be stressed out or not. When I was listening to my primitive limbic mind (which I describe in another post), I was worried that I would not be able to make an impact in my role. I kept wondering how much difference I personally made to my department and to my company. Not being able to see concrete evidence of any difference, I continually doubted my abilities. Not having any control (which in my mind was equivalent to authority) over a department of hundreds of engineers, I questioned whether my small team was equipped to succeed.

And then, once I told myself that I was free from fear, I could stand back and look at my situation more objectively and more patiently. I realized that, yes, I don't have authority over other people, but realistically, even managers or directors don't have complete control over their direct reports. Keeping talented software engineers from leaving for better opportunities is a constant battle in Silicon Valley, and that means you have to try to figure out how to keep your engineers happy by giving them lots of autonomy, while still ensuring that everyone's work comes together to achieve the organization's goals. That juggling act is a fact of life. Just because I want to make a difference doesn't mean that the juggling act should be any easier for me.

In other words, while it's true I can't control many variables, I can contribute my decision-making skills, my people skills, my writing and communication skills, and my ability to win compromises and agreements, to slowly nudge forward our general state of efficiency and effectiveness. I should be grateful that, despite various challenges, at least everyone in my department believes that providing great customer support and great tools is vital to our entire company. Our task may be complex, but at least we are tackling it together.

So now I have a new way of thinking about my job. Every morning, when I get to the office, I think to myself: Today is an opportunity for me to make a tiny little bit of progress towards my goals and our vision. Rather than worrying about how I'll be judged during performance reviews, or about whether people will appreciate what I do, or even whether I can succeed, I think to myself: "Today, I'm taking steps to bring about a day when people rave about how great our tools are at LinkedIn, how natural they feel, how easy it is to figure out problems that come up, and how these tools help them achieve software engineering craftsmanship." Sure, we're not quite there yet. Sure, we'll encounter obstacles on our way towards this vision. But when we are all aligned and motivated to get there, it is only a matter of time. It's not if we get there, it's when.

Such a motivation does not come from a place of fear, but from a place of hope. It is a lot more fun and energizing to be motivated from hope than from fear. I highly recommend it.

It's a lot more fun and energizing to be motivated from hope than from fear.

What is your experience? Have you ever tried to be free from fear? Let me know in the comments below!