Why Waste Time Being Scared of the Unknown When We Can Be Curious Instead?

I write because people have always said I’m a storyteller, and I have many stories to tell. Though the tales I narrate aren’t fictional, for now at least, each one is a true account of my life’s experiences.

Aside from shock or surprise, one of the most common comments I get is how brave the audience thinks I am. Not brave in the sense of facing assured danger, but brave when it comes to facing the unknown. While most people hesitate or become consumed with the what-ifs, I continue my path relatively unphased.

The truth is, worrying about the future used to occupy my mind constantly. It ruled my life, disturbed my sleep, and caused constant second-guessing to the point I stopped trusting myself. Then at some point, I became curious, and everything changed after that.

Fear is Useful but Can Takeover

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that fear is an important emotion. Fear, while scary and uncomfortable to feel, has plenty of benefits. The most obvious is alerting us to dangers and threats, which helps us survive. But when left unattended, it can get a little out of control.

It’s also a tricky emotion because while its foundation is almost always the same, it presents in different ways by hiding behind other emotions such as anger or sadness. Fear pumps us up. Even when an immediate threat isn’t present, the mere idea of one makes our blood rush, and we receive a rush of adrenaline. Sometimes, if we aren’t careful, we become almost addicted to this sensation because fear is hungry and will consume everything if we let it.

That’s where people seem to run into problems. The way I see it, emotions are sent from our subconscious to deliver a message, and our job is to acknowledge it, then evaluate whether it’s worthy of a response.

For instance, a fear of intimacy may cause someone to sabotage their relationships, pull away or perhaps become angry when someone tries to get close to them.

However, if this person can acknowledge their fear of being vulnerable — a requirement to sustain a healthy relationship — then they can choose to either overcome this fear by deciding the fear is worth it if it allows them to find acceptance and love, or they can listen to it and continue pushing people away, ultimately creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Another reason fear is tricky is that it inhibits logical thinking. This leads to more rash decisions and impulsive actions, which is why it’s so important to be aware of when you’re scared and whether or not the fear is warranted.

When it comes to life and death, by all means, listen to your fear and find safety. But sometimes, our fears, while well-intentioned, can keep us from finding joy, love or miss out on an amazing experience.

However, when the fear we feel is about the unknown, we have two options as far as I’m concerned. Either spend an absurd amount of time worrying and convincing ourselves everything will go wrong or become curious about everything that could go right.

Curiosity is as Vital as Fear

Being curious is as much a part of being human as dreaming or crying. We’re all born curious and have an entire developmental age during our first few years revolving completely around the question, “why?”

Curiosity plays an integral role in our mental health, memory, and intelligence levels. All benefits we’ve known about for a while, especially regarding child development. But curiosity continues to aid us beyond youth.

In 2014, the University of California, Davis published a study which found,

• People are better at learning the information they’re curious about.
• Memory for incidental material presented during curious states was also enhanced.
• Curiosity is associated with anticipatory activity in the nucleus accumbens and midbrain.
• Memory benefits for incidental material depend on midbrain-hippocampus involvement.

We learn better and retain more information when we’re interested in the topic. Some people love learning to code. They’re curious about new combinations and effects they can create, while others don’t understand the concept and have no desire to. For anyone not interested in learning to code, the process is extremely frustrating and complex. It’s not easy to learn, and it’s more difficult to remember information without curiosity.

Curiosity Illuminates the Darkness of Fear

We live in a world made of opposites, and in the same way that water extinguishes a fire, curiosity illuminates the darkness around fear. Immediate life or death threats aside, fear is often a lack of knowledge at a fundamental level.

When we’re scared, we want concrete answers to hold on to, which is hard when usually what we’re afraid of is something unfamiliar and unknown. This might be the outcome of an event like the pandemic. Our instincts are to recoil to safety or become defensive with increased aggression. Our minds try to fill in the blanks, so we create assumptions and decide they must be true.

But curiosity is the opposite. When we approach a situation with curiosity, it opens the door to possibility. Instead of filling the blanks with assumptions, we can search for answers and allow knowledge, not opinion, to fill the holes.

The pandemic is horrendous, but I’m endlessly curious about society’s response and how we’re adapting to this change. Some people sought to understand how it works and what society can do to mitigate the damage. Whereas others responded in fear, made assumptions facts, and shut off their logical minds.

When meeting someone who looks or acts differently, become curious about who they are. What experiences have they had, and what can you learn from them. In turn, this increases empathy and knowledge about the world and the people in it.

When it comes to most of society’s problems, such as climate change, inequality, and the pandemic, we already have most of the solutions we need. But instead of becoming curious and working together, people are retreating in fear and picking every idea apart without ever acknowledging the possibilities.

Conclusion

Humans are adaptable animals. We’re also complex and have a dynamic network of emotions. Fear, in particular, can be a tricky emotion to handle because it presents differently depending on the situation. It’s also one of our strongest felt emotions which makes it a powerful one to contend with.

But curiosity is just as compelling in its own right and has an uncanny ability to sizzle out fear when our lives aren’t in danger. Fear and curiosity are both vital for a successful life, and they work great together. Curiosity calms unnecessary fears while Fear keeps curious people from wandering too far. After all, as they say, curiosity killed the cat.

We’re wasting a lot of time and energy worrying about the unknown. It’s easy to find flaws if that’s what you’re looking for, but it’s just as important to be curious about the possibilities. You might end up discovering or experiencing something wonderfully unexpected and are more likely to if you have an open mind.

“By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us.” ~ Alan Watts

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Previously Published on medium

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