When Marianne Williamson wrote, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure,” maybe you were like me and had a hard time believing it.
Maybe you thought she was nuts.
Maybe the notion that what we really fear isn’t our darkness but our light was enough for you to literally scratch your head in confusion. The light bulb popped over your head but it didn’t turn on.
The truth of the matter is that maybe some of us are truly afraid of how great we are. But that’s not all of us. Some of us are aware of our tendency towards destruction. Even if deep down there is greatness, there is a chasm of chaos that threatens to devour us and anyone who gets too close.
We see this with many celebrities who perform awesome acts but then get found in incriminating circumstances. Were they afraid of their light? It doesn’t seem so. They might not have even been aware of their darkness.
So when we talk about the fear of success it always seems like a misnomer or a paradox. How can something virtually everyone wants be feared? Or bad? It makes no sense at all.
I’ve found two general reasons people fear success: they think something bad will happen, or they are using success as a means to get what they really want: love. I’ve also found that each issue has its own answer.
The ability to get a stamp of approval from the major decision-makers, your peers and even strangers is quite an experience. Some people let it get to their head. Their egos inflate. They get too big for their britches. Then the ego gets so big that it pops.
Cancel culture is a reckoning of one’s failure to live up to the expectations others had thrusted upon them. You may never work in that industry again. You might have to assume a new identity or work in the background.
Or maybe you’re perfect. Too perfect. You’re so perfect in the eyes of the adoring public that the pressure forces you to crack. You were already a diamond, but now you’re shattered.
Or maybe you’ve created your magnum opus, but no one else seems to think so. They want the work that you consider inferior to the genius you’ve created now. Do you give the people what they want and abandon yourself, or abandon the people who’ve been funding your lifestyle?
You get the picture.
What one needs to remember is that literally nothing in life is perfect. Phrased another way, life is perfectly imperfect. There will always be the pleasant and the unpleasant in every single endeavor. Nothing escapes the reality of contrast in our world.
So if this is the fundamental fact of life, one is certainly free to fear success but does it really make sense? If literally everything is capable of being unpleasant, it would make more sense to embrace the inevitability of calamity than to try to escape it. Because you can’t escape it.
Moreover, who’s to say that the issues that could arise in one’s journey to success would be unbearable? Who’s to say that these issues wouldn’t eventually pass? The fear is just a projection into a future which doesn’t exist.
Now, with regards to the other reason people fear success, success is often used as a replacement for the love that one did not receive in their life. Most of our neuroses begin in childhood and this would be no different, but it may occur later in life.
After a belittling experience, one may get a chip on their shoulder and desires to prove their worth to not just those who dismissed them but to the world. By obtaining success, they would be the hero of their story and firmly place their naysayers in the villain role, shaming them for not supporting the hero.
But why would anyone fear this? Because there’s a part of them that is astute enough to know that success isn’t the cure for their itch, but they may not be astute enough to know exactly what it is they want.
What one imagines or describes as success illustrates what it is that one is really after. If success to you was a pool of money like Scrooge McDuck, then it indicates an insecurity with regards to money. If success to you was applause and people listening keenly to your every word, I would consider that an insecurity with regards to love.
Perhaps you didn’t feel like you were listened to or cared for. Perhaps you felt like you had something to offer the world but not only was the world unaware, those closest to you did not take any interest in you or your talent. Perhaps you were outright abused, disrespected or neglected.
Any of these reasons could cause someone to want success because to get success means that people love you. Or does it?
Many have achieved success but felt empty once they attained it. They’re thankful for the success, grateful for their supporters and don’t take the money for granted. But they feel empty.
The fuel of getting success got them to the promised land. So why do they feel so empty? Because this isn’t what they really wanted. They wanted love.
To make matters worse, do these people love you, or do they love what you’ve given them? To those who received adequate love growing up or got over the trauma of not receiving enough love, they have no problem if people love their work and not them. In fact, they acknowledge that that is just a matter of fact.
However, if the initial yearning for love is there, the desire for success could be a means to get the love in a way that looks socially acceptable and even kills two birds with one stone because you gotta eat, right?
So if you or anyone you know has a fear of success, consider the possibilities above. It could be either a fear that something bad will happen (and they won’t be able to handle it) or that even if they get success they will still not be happy because what they really want is love.
But if you accept that bad things can happen in any area of one’s life including success, acknowledge that any calamity can be met by facing the challenge, and accept the lack of love one received in one’s life, success isn’t so scary after all.
In fact, one will find that success is merely the byproduct of excellence due to one’s devotion to a craft.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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