My Perspective on Fear

After a fairly academic and removed observation of fear, I guess I should delve into my perspective fear, and how I experience and deal with it.  My initial analysis was that I am the type of person who confronts fears head on.  I play paintball, go dirt-biking, and do a lot of work at heights, not exactly a timid lifestyle.  I used to be afraid of the dark when I was younger, but now am known for never using a flashlight when walking in the dark.  I can't say I really overcame any significant fear of heights, but I regularly do things in that regard that most people would be afraid to even think about.  That is more an issue of not experiencing fear, instead of overcoming it.

If I recognize within myself fear of something in the physical world, I usually confront it head on.  But there are also certain fears I don't seek out opportunities to overcome.  For example, I am not a fan of reptiles and spiders.  I won't hesitate to "take care" of one when needed, but I am not going to go pet one anytime soon.  But these fears aren't having a significant impact on my life, limiting my growth as a person.  Relative to others, I experience very little fear in the realm of physical challenges, so viewed from that perspective I probably appear fearless or courageous.

In a social context, I can identify a similar pattern.  Certain fears I am very conscious of, and try to confront head on.  Others fears that I can't fully understand or quantify are much more difficult for me to figure out how to deal with.  I am aware that I have difficulty talking with strangers, and that is not a fear of them so much as a fear of not being able to come up with anything to say to them. (In the same way that fear of heights is totally irrational, but fear of falling...)  That issue doesn't apply exclusively to strangers, but the more I know about someone, the more possible things I have to talk about with them, so the less likely I am to have that problem.

I go work at a convention every year, and spend a week talking to strangers all day long.  Not something I really enjoy, but it doesn't scare me as much as it used to.  Now in this case, even without knowing the people I am talking with, I do have something to talk about, the product I am selling.  That helps, in that the only point of stress is that they are complete strangers.  Hopefully practice in that situation, with an obvious topic available, will help me prepare for situations where that isn't defined either, like "mingling" after church.  Those totally unstructured social times are probably the most challenging for me, but I am not really sure what aspect of them I am actually afraid of.  Clearly I am not in any danger, and that type of situation is not unfamiliar to me, so I don't fully understand the root cause of that anxiety.    But it is obviously an issue, and holds me back from fully enjoying myself in many normal social situations.  As with many things in life, identifying the precise source of a problem can be harder than actually solving it.