A Liberating Dose of Fear
by Kacie Lee (PO ‘24)
In contrast to the fear of failure, which causes people to become increasingly desperate, anxious, and unsettled after every setback, reverence for God allows Christians to approach the uncertain future with confidence.
I credit my premature white hairs to fear of failure.
It wasn’t until my brothers got into prestigious colleges that I began to fear falling short. I feared being the odd one out of three siblings, so with my heart set on admission into an elite college, I consumed myself with grades.
Now, as a first-year in college, the fear that motivated me throughout high school has evolved into a more multidimensional form. I often worry that performing poorly in college — whether it be academics, extracurriculars, or networking — could close the door on my future. Like the hydra, fear seems impossible to destroy: cut off a limb, and two more take its place.
Even accomplished individuals can fall victim to fear. Kendrick Lamar, one of the most acclaimed rappers of this generation, outlines the viciousness of this never-ending cycle in his song “FEAR.” At 7 years old, Lamar feared discipline; at 17 he feared dying in Compton; even after reaching phenomenal levels of fame, wealth, and success,
At 27, my biggest fear was losin’ it all
Scared to spend money, had me sleepin’ from hall to hall
Scared to go back to Section 8 with my mama stressin’
30 shows a month and I still won’t buy me no Lexus
What do you fear? Not everyone fears failure, but everyone fears something or someone. Perhaps it is loss of relationships, loss of comfort, loss of control, loss of certainty, loss of status, loss of freedom, loneliness, rejection, aging, or death. Perhaps it’s nothing at all; perhaps it’s vague and ominous and unsayable.
The general consensus is that fear is undesirable. But what if fear could be used to your advantage? In fact, there is a type of fear that people say fosters success: the fear of failure.
Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, is well known for his book Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Identify and Exploit the Crisis Points that Challenge Every Business, where he touches on critical components for success in the marketplace — “fear of competition, fear of bankruptcy, fear of being wrong, and fear of losing.” But even after reaching success, he says fear must still persist. Why?
“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”
Crediting his sustained success to fear, Grove explains that constantly being “paranoid” drives his continued business proactivity and creativity, which in turn drives his success. This fear of failure is ubiquitous across the business world. In Jeff Bezos’ 1999 letter to shareholders regarding Amazon’s goals for the future, he notes that absent constant innovation, rivals would overtake Amazon. This fear of competition is thus crucial to maintain a pioneering work ethic and to avoid descending into complacency:
“I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified.”
Fear inspires businesses and individuals to take charge, remain vigilant, and extend (rather than simply achieve) their success. A Harvard Business Review article outlines how entrepreneurs’ fears of “opportunity costs, personal financial security, or ability to obtain funding for [their] ventures” ensure that they work relentlessly to secure their future. What modern-day leaders seem to be saying is this: fear nothing but the absence of fear.
But the same article notes that while fear can be a helpful force, it does come with negative effects like “higher levels of stress,” which is well-known to be damaging: it debilitates our ability to control anxiety, and anxiety increases mortality risk.
Though Bezos uses fear to drive “constant improvement, experimentation, and innovation,” there is also evidence that fear decreases creativity. As explained by neuroscientist Dr. Wendy Suzuk, “long-term stress is literally killing the cells in your hippocampus that contribute to the deterioration of your memory… [I]t’s also zapping your creativity.”
Even without this science, we empirically know that fear of failure carries devastating consequences. Most of us have experienced (and perhaps still experience) its side effects: clouded thinking, insomnia, fatigue, irritability, binge eating, headaches, chest pains, obsessive planning, or feeling overwhelmed.
Thus, while the fear of failure can be a powerful force for success, that success is often unsustainable, and comes at the expense of so much. But maybe Bezos and Grove are onto something. Could there be a fear without these side effects? Could there be a fear that is wholly good?
I propose there is. The Christian perspective provides one: the fear of God. I know that this phrase conjures images of terror and anxiety — of desperately walking the tightrope between pleasing God and the fire-and-brimstone abyss, miserably trying to avoid His wrath.
But this isn’t what I mean. The word “fear” in the Bible originates from the Hebrew word yirah (יִרְאָה), which is distinct from the English “fear.” Yirah connotes honor, respect, and worshipful reverence. The fear of God is not an unpleasant emotion caused by the anxiety that God might hurt us, but rather an overwhelming awe of and love for God, with whom we desire to cultivate a deeply personal relationship.
The fear of God is not a fear of punishment. It’s a fear of damaging or breaking an intimate relationship with God. Christians hold that God is the Creator, a tender and compassionate Father who continues to love us despite our mistakes (Psalm 103:13, NLT). Christians are not afraid of eternal punishment, but rather a future eternally separated from a good and gracious Father — and even a present temporarily divorced from His warmth and love.
The connotation behind yirah suggests that the Christian faith is actually built on this father-child relationship where Christians respect, obey, and honor God. Similar to how a long-distance relationship with a significant other is not just sending weekly updates, Christianity is more than a one-hour Sunday ritual. It is the development of a personal relationship with God; it is the process of spending time and sharing life with Him daily.
It is through fearing God that Christians overcome fear of failure. The biblical story of Joseph illustrates how this works. After being sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph does not become resentful towards them, but instead maintains trust that God has “plans for [his] welfare and not for evil… a future and a hope” for him (Jeremiah 29:11, ESV). Another dimension, therefore, of fearing the Lord is believing that He provides a security that is unattainable by human exertion (John 14:27). Since Joseph trusts that God has good plans for his future, he is able to rejoice and retain hope in the face of individual setbacks and trying circumstances — in the face of a “failed” life. This is the attitude that enables Joseph to later ascend to the second-most powerful position in Egypt.
The takeaway from the story of Joseph is that the fear of God is the antidote for the fear of failure. In contrast to the fear of failure, which causes people to become increasingly desperate, anxious, and unsettled after every setback, reverence for God allows Christians to approach the uncertain future with confidence. This confidence is not synonymous with hope for situational outcomes, but declares that no matter how bad things seem, even if life appears to be “failing” us, God takes care of our physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
In my own life, yielding my fears to God instead of failure has transformed my mental well-being. Instead of “waking up every morning terrified,” I wake up confident that the all-powerful God is watching over me. Instead of being “paranoid,” I live at peace with God’s wondrous creation. Although I need constant reminding, I know that the only way out of the vicious cycle of insecurity that the fear of failure fuels is through reorienting my trust in God Himself, who promises that He will never fail me — He has taken care of my everything, from inconspicuous errands to life-altering decisions, and will continue to do so. Instead of studying to avoid academic failure, I approach college as preparation for a divinely bespoke future. This belief liberates me from the need to stress about my performance on every test, class, and interview: my goal is no longer to prevent individual failures, but to maintain my confidence in the good path God has promised — a path that I may not understand at this moment, but one that I wholeheartedly believe is the best for me.
