Why is The Unknown Path So Damned Scary?
Because it’s unknown – and thus, uncertain.
On the one hand, I’ve never been one for plans, lists, and the like. It’s always felt genuine and true to myself to be more improvisational in my approach to life.
On the other hand, I’m a Virgo. Sometimes I get utterly ordered and freakishly clean, arrange, and set stuff up.
When it comes to choosing and walking a given path in my life, this can be challenging. Loose and ready for anything that comes my way – but equally needing to find or create order.
One thing I’ve learned about conscious reality creation over the years is that you need to be specific. But not too specific. There must be a sweet spot between striving to manifest an exact, precise thing (material or immaterial) and something that might not be exact – but aligned with or better than said thing.
Thus, I’ve had to get familiar with the unknown.
But the unknown is rife with uncertainty. And uncertainty is about as far from comfortable and familiar as you can get.
That’s often been what’s stayed my hand, slowed, or stopped my progress. The terror of the uncertainty borne of the unknown.
But why is it all so damned scary?
Fear and leaving your comfort zone
When you choose to walk a path for your life – particularly one that goes against the “norm” – you will likely walk out of your comfort zone.
Understanding what comfort zones are is hugely important. Comfort is a misnomer.
What it should be called instead is a familiarity zone or a stability zone. But the stability isn’t real, genuine stability. It’s a false sense of such.
Emotions are chemical. Thank you, science, for that. And like any chemical, the body can get used to or addicted to emotions like any illicit drug.
That’s why you might find yourself repeating the same mistake or setting yourself up for that same unwanted feeling over and over. It’s familiar, and there is a sense of stability from the familiar. You crave it.
Comfort zones are known. Even when they are not necessarily desired – because they’re known and familiar – you attach yourself to them.
On the other side of your comfort zone, there’s something you desire for your life. It might be tangible or intangible, big or small – but it’s different from where you are and where you came from. But while you have an idea of what you’re after – what it will look like is unknown.
And the unknown is full of uncertainty. And uncertainty is scary. It can be so damned scary that leaving your comfort zone – and the discomfort – feels like a bad idea.
But if your comfort zone is not comfortable – just familiar – leaving it might be both desirable and worthwhile.
But then the how, what, and why associated with leaving your comfort zone can be scary.
The known today was unknown yesterday
When you look at this idea from an historical perspective, it’s pretty obvious.
The familiar, everyday technology in our lives – such as whatever device you’re using to read these words – was beyond unknown to the people who lived only 100 years ago. Just 50 years ago, the concepts might have existed – but were not familiar to any by a very few.
We take this for granted. Things are and have always been this way – save that this is utterly untrue. Why? Because change is the one and only constant in the Universe.
Everyone and everything changes. Sometimes this is amazingly slow, other times ludicrously swift. But it’s inevitable, unstoppable, and always occurring.
Thus, when you zoom into your own life experience and look from a less inside perspective, you’ll see that what’s familiar and “comfortable” to you now hasn’t always been.
My experience with this
When I look back at my life just 10 years ago, I see how different it was from how it is today. The familiar of then has changed – a lot. I have a different job, live in a different home, have different friendships, and am on a different path. That’s just the visible aspects of my life.
How I think, feel, and act has shifted in many ways, too. I can share one example of this. I used to accept being “the clown” among my peers. It was easier to be or make the joke than be my true self so that I’d be accepted (and my fear of rejecting sated). But that state of being isn’t who I am today – so I actively no longer play that role.
While some people still toss things out to recall my former “clown” state, I don’t accept it anymore. That’s who I was not who I am.
Sure, there are some similarities here. But everything comfortable or “familiar” in my life today wasn’t even on my radar just 10 years ago – tangible or intangible.
That’s why the known today was unknown to you yesterday. And that’s also why the unknown of tomorrow isn’t known today.
Was getting from there to here really all that scary?
I have no doubt that leaving any familiar place in the past was not without lesser or greater discomfort. That discomfort likely had uncertainty attached to it and the unknowns before you. But when all was said and done, and you look back on it now – was it really all that scary?
With some exceptions (because there are always exceptions) I’d guess no. In all likelihood, the fear you had in facing the uncertainty of the unknown was not nearly as bad as the actual happening.
That’s the thing about the unknown being so damned scary. It’s not the unknown that you’re scared of. Nor the uncertainty.
What you’re scared of is potential suffering.
Let’s say your company has been laying people off. You have concerns about being next. And then, you get informed the boss wants to see you.
What happens if you get fired? Will you find another job? Get tossed out of your home? Lose people because of their perceptions that you’re a loser?
All of the above are just expressions of potential, unwanted suffering. The suffering is what you fear.
Maybe you get laid off. But instead of suffering, you find a way better job. You don’t suffer at all – you experience joy instead.
Or maybe you get promoted. Again, you don’t suffer as you feared at all – and get something good instead.
The point is – the unknown isn’t truly scary. It’s any possible, potential suffering that scares you.
Beyond the unknown
At one point in human history, when people looked out at the seemingly endless Atlantic Ocean, all they could see was vast, empty nothingness. For a long time, many thought if you went far enough into that nothingness, you’d fall off the edge into a potentially far scarier unknown.
This repeats throughout history. Until brave souls undertake the journey. They set out across the ocean, across the nearly impassible mountains, or into the starry sky.
What will you find beyond the unknown? If you knew, it wouldn’t be unknown. But I can tell you there is one, known answer.
You’ll find something.
Yes, that’s vague. But when you talk about the unknown, vague is all you’ve got. Why? Because if you knew, it wouldn’t be unknown.
It always comes down to the choices you make. And if you desire to have control of your life experience, you must practice mindfulness.
Genuine mindfulness is simple. It’s conscious awareness, here and now. And you can reach it via any of these questions:
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What are my intentions?
- What am I doing?
Each of these questions can only be answered in the present. Thus, asking them – and answering them -makes you mindful.
Being in the here and now – and consciously, mindfully aware – is grounding and centering. You’re not in the past or future – but now. And that’s known. Really known.
When you recognize that the known always comes from the unknown, you can be more aware that being scared of the unknown doesn’t protect or serve you. You’ve crossed the unknown before and will do so again.
I’ll bet it’s never as scary as you feared it would be.
Can you see that the unknown path isn’t so damned scary after all?
This is the five hundred and eighty-ninth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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