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Fear of Failure – Living Up to Expectations
As a child, fear of failure ruled my life. On the surface, my childhood looked pretty good. I grew up in a prosperous part of Western Europe. My parents were happily married and they loved me. I may not have had all the things I wanted, but I surely had all the things I needed. I was a bright kid, I did well in school and sports, and I grew up with some good friends. But my life on the inside was very different. I was lonely and extremely shy. My dad had always been quiet, distant and introverted, so it was hard to talk to him about anything. My mom had proven to be a good listener, but an even better talker. As a young child, I had tried to share some of my innermost worries and feelings with her, only to be teased about them by my older brother the day after. I discovered the hard way that I had no one to confide in. I found myself alone when I was dealing with problems or when something was bothering me.
At the same time, I felt my parents had raised the bar for my life very high. They seemed to have decided I was their smart kid, so all my grades had to be perfect. And it seemed that in all other areas of life a certain level of perfection was required of me as well: sports, music lessons, my behavior. It seemed that all the things I did in my life were to please other people or to make them proud; my parents, my music teacher, my soccer coach. There was always the lingering fear of disappointing others; of not living up to expectations. The value of my life always seemed to be dependent on the things I did, not who I was. I felt an enormous pressure, but had no one to really talk to so the pressure never eased.
I played the trumpet. That was a desire my parents had for me -- not my own desire. I had to play in competitions quite often and I hated it. I didn't want to be the center of attention, but hundreds of people were watching me play, waiting for me to make a mistake. Judging me. I was too lonely, insecure and shy to be in the spotlight and it only made me more self-conscious. It increased the pressure; I couldn't fail, I had to perform just perfectly. I got to the point where I had trouble sleeping many weeks in advance of every competition. I tried to talk to my parents about it, but because of our deficient communication, I never got my point across. It was all pointless.
Fear of failure was permeating my life. By the time I went to high-school, I was terrified before every test, even though I had always been a straight-A student. I failed my driving exam twice, not because I was a bad driver, but because I was gripped by fear, too scared to mess up. Even though my life seemed perfect from the outside and I kept acting as if I was the average cool kid, I had no self-esteem and I felt chained, caged, and controlled.
Fear of Failure – From Bad To Worse
My fear of failure lead me to escape from a part of my life, any part of my life. The quick fixes that the world has to offer were crying out to me, beckoning me to run away from myself. When I was 14, I got drunk for the first time. By the time I was 18, alcohol, nicotine, and sexual gratification had become necessary daily comforts in my life. I was numbing the pain.
I also built up a wall of anger and pride. I transformed myself into an aggressive-looking punk-rocker, not realizing that this was my way of keeping other people at a distance. I knew I was a very smart kid and by pretending to be better than everybody else, I at least had some sense of worth and value. I was angry at the world; everybody was stupid, except for me. But everybody seemed happy, except for me. That made me even angrier. And I kept numbing the pain with the usual "fixes." But there was no hope.
When I left for college, my problems with sex and alcohol only increased. My pit was deeper than ever. Things really spun out of control when I started having nightly panic attacks. After six months, I completely collapsed. I couldn't fight these attacks by myself anymore. Physically and mentally I was at the end of my rope. I decided to move back in with my parents. During the following years, the panic attacks slowly subsided but I was back at square one, where I didn't want to be. Life was a nightmare. It took years before I finally had built up enough courage to move out once again, angrier and more disgruntled at life than ever before. In the meantime, I had filled my meaningless days by finishing college and even getting a PhD. After my graduation, I had been offered a research grant and because I didn't know what else to do, I had accepted the offer. I hated it but I'm sure I would have hated anything else just as much.
I was almost 30-years-old and I had grown into a man filled with anger, cynicism, and false pride. These were my defense mechanisms, my way of coping with the world around me; my way of blocking out and denying the happiness of the world because it was a happiness I could not find within myself. I convinced myself that everybody else had to be wrong, all the time, and that I always knew best, all the time. Neighborly love was an alien concept to me. I hated people. I hated myself most of all. In short, I was living my life far removed from God and my actions were a testimony of this. But on the inside, I still felt like a small boy -- lost and lonely -- a speck in a dark, meaningless universe, silently crying out for help.
Fear of Failure – A Change was Needed
At this time I happened to meet an American girl online. We started talking, got along great, and she visited me a couple of times during holiday seasons. After almost a year, she moved into my apartment in Europe and we got married. We lived there for about 4 years and had two beautiful daughters. During these years, I grew enormously -- in words, thoughts, and actions -- because of my love for my wife and children. This was a love I had never truly experienced or comprehended before. I quit smoking and my alcohol-consumption decreased dramatically. But I still struggled with my sexual problems and my perspective on the futility of life was still extremely unhealthy. It was exhausting me mentally. I was still looking for meaning and purpose, and I was still trying to fill the voids in my heart with things that cannot accomplish this.
My wife had a lot of trouble adapting to the European lifestyle, culture, and language. We tried to make changes by moving twice and by trying different jobs, but to no avail. She was dealing with her own issues and tried to be a great mom in a country where she couldn't understand a word. In these 4 years, both of us had been struggling with our health and both my daughters had been admitted to the hospital for several weeks during their infancy. Then the attacks on September 11, 2001 happened in the United States, and we knew for sure we were going to move to the US. My wife felt a need to be "back home" and I wanted a normal, functioning family and -- subconsciously -- a new start for myself. And so we did. We sold everything we had, arranged a greencard for me, and simply left. In the Spring of 2002 we were living in the States.
Continue reading to find out how my fear of failure changed
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