Fear

Wouldn’t it be nice to be fearless?

People like to engage in catastrophic thinking. What is catastrophic thinking? When you think that the worst possible outcome is going to happen to you—all the time. I used to do this in my Wall Street days. I’d push the wrong button, or put a trade in the wrong account, and I’d think to myself: that’s it, I’m going to jail. Every one of my catastrophic thinking fantasies ended up with me in jail. For a period of about ten years, I thought I was going to jail all the time.

Now, clearly, I didn’t end up in jail. Clearly, that was irrational. And if you told me at the time that it was irrational, I wouldn’t have believed you. People did tell me at the time that it was irrational, and I didn’t believe them. I really, truly believed that I was going to jail. I went to the worst possible outcome, and believed it as if it were really happening.

The thing about these irrational fears is that you can’t simply explain to someone that they are irrational. Because to them, it feels real. And then, the bad thing ends up not happening, and they are onto the next fear, making up a story and believing it. And it cycles over and over again.

Wouldn’t you like to stop? Wouldn’t you like to be happy?

Some people are absolutely crippled with anxiety. It goes way beyond worrying into sheer, unrelenting terror that lasts for years. Some people are on a dose of Klonopin that would kill a giraffe. But that is not the answer.

Around 2013, I decided I wanted to stop. And the episodes of catastrophic thinking became less and less frequent. In my 2022 piece, “The Cure For Anxiety,” I talked about the mechanical, procedural steps I took to reduce my anxiety. Small habits that I made and practiced on a daily basis to squash the catastrophic thinking. And it was a process.

But that is not the whole story.

You can do the mechanical, procedural things that I described in my 2022 essay, but it is more than that. The answer: a spiritual solution. You have to go from believing that the world is a dangerous place to believing that the world is a safe, forgiving place. You have to believe that even if these awful, terrible things you dreamed up happened to you, that you would still be okay. People have anxiety about losing things—loss of money, loss of property, loss of reputation, loss of relationships. I guess when you’ve been through it all, like I have, and come out the other side, you don’t fear these things anymore.

It is about faith, but it is more than just about faith. Lots of people believe in a higher power. That’s level 1 of the video game. Level 72 of the video game is trusting the higher power, and knowing that God isn’t going to give you anything you can’t handle, and also, that the tough stuff that we go through isn’t without purpose. It’s all for a reason. I believe that God has a purpose for me now, but I couldn’t see it in the 2000s. The suicide attempts, the psych wards, at the time, I believed was unnecessary suffering. There is literally no such thing as unnecessary suffering. I went through all that, at the time I went through it, at the place I went through it, so that I could get the help that I was so desperately needed so that it would unlock my potential and I could go on to live a life that most people only dream of. At the time, all I wanted was to not kill myself. 19 years later, I’m writing books and newsletters, teaching, managing money, doing public speaking, DJing, hosting radio shows, and living in a 10,000 square foot house that is pretty close to being paid for. In 2006, my biggest ambition was to not kill myself. If you had told me in 2006 that this is where I would be in 19 years, I would have…cried? I wouldn’t have dreamed it was possible.

We don’t know what the future holds, but no matter what you are going through, no matter how awful it is, I can tell you one thing for sure: this, too, shall pass. It will get better. A lot of people were trying to help me back then, and people said a lot of dumb shit to me, but the truest thing that anyone ever said, while I was crying on the sidewalk at 87^th and Lex, when I thought I had lost everything, was this: it gets better. Boy, did it fucking get better. And boy, do I have a lot of gratitude.

So it gets better—if you want it to. There are two parts to this: a decision, and action. First, you make a decision that you want to get better. This is harder than it sounds, because sick people want to stay sick. I wrote about this, too, back in 2022. Being miserable is easy. Getting better is hard. So first, you must make a decision that you want to get better. And then you have to take action. Don’t worry, you won’t have to change much—just absolutely everything in your life. People don’t change—but when they do, it is glorious. Becoming mentally healthy is one of the hardest things you will ever do. And it is a multi-decade process. The first place people usually go is the medication, but the medication is often a short-term fix, a band-aid. In the beginning, the medication will allow you to function. But you can’t realistically be taking Xanax or Valium for 20 years. Once on the medication, the goal should be to get off the medication. I absolutely believe in modern medicine—the last thing I am going to tell people is that they should forget the meds and go find God. But it can be a psychological crutch over time, and it doesn’t allow you to reach your full potential.

There is a saying: “Fear knocked. Faith answered. No one was there.” Took me about 20 years to understand that. I’ve been through some rough stuff, but I know people who have been through a lot rougher stuff than me, and they made it through with their faith intact. In fact, their faith carried them through. Combat. Dead spouses. Dead children. Bankruptcies. Divorces. Arrests. Jail time. If I find myself losing conviction that everything is going to be okay, I can borrow some of their conviction. Everything is going to be okay. And even if it’s not okay, it’s still okay.

There was a dumb movie that came out in 1998 called Sphere, with Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel Jackson. It like an underwater alien movie or something; I forget the details. Like I said, it’s dumb. But the movie is all about fear. And there is a scene towards the end where the three of them are in a mini-sub, and they have to undock so they can escape the base which is being overrun with aliens or something, but they’re paralyzed with fear. Shit is blowing up all over the place, and they’re just sitting in the mini-sub with their fear. I’ve probably done a poor job of explaining this, but if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about. That’s what fear is. Fear prevents you from living and enjoying life. Fear prevents you from doing the things you want to do. Fear prevents you from realizing your full potential. And the amazing thing is—it’s all self-inflicted. We do it to ourselves; we are trapped within our own minds. God strike me down for bringing up Elon Musk again, but the guy literally has no fear. And look what he does! He literally told the SEC to go fuck themselves. And got away with it! Who does that? That is what a life lived without fear looks like. I’m not saying that we should all emulate his ketamine consumption, or suggest that is what is responsible for his fearlessness, and clearly, he has some other character defects, but the man has no fucking fear. That is what is possible when you don’t have fear and anxiety—you can literally do anything.

So why not try?

I write all kinds of stuff on this blog, some funny stuff, some sad stuff, some uplifting stuff, but I swear to God, this will be the most important piece I ever write. Text someone and they don’t text back? He hates me. Get an email from compliance? I’m getting fired. Child gets sick? He’s going to die. Stop fucking doing this stuff—it’s all in your head. And it’s destroying your dreams one day at a time. Make a decision. Take action. Use the tools. Talk to people. Have faith. It really will be okay.