Fear is a terrible sensation, one we never, ever want to feel. How lucky we are to live in a time and place where it's so often possible to avoid the things that scare us most: violence, disease, natural disasters, dangerous animals, and, at least until the very end, death. Instead, we get to sit around on our widening behinds watching television shows...about violence, disease, natural disasters, dangerous animals, and death.

Hmm.

I noticed a long time ago that fear often comes packaged with enthrallment. We don't look away from accidents or guns; we give them our rapt attention. This tendency has obvious evolutionary advantages—it's safer to keep deadly objects front-of-mind than to ignore them—and as a result, our brains seem to be hardwired so that scary experiences contain hidden fascination, and fascinating experiences are often scary.

In fact, I'd argue that there's a direct correlation between the intensity of our fear and the degree of our fascination: Murder yanks our attention harder than heart disease; an earthquake is more interesting than a bad sunburn. This applies even at the much lower fear levels that characterize most of our lives. Think TV dramas: Arguments are more attention grabbing than agreement; the path of true love more interesting when it's forbidden and dangerous than when it runs smoothly.

One way to put more zest into your life, then, is to seek activities or situations where fear and fascination overlap. The problem is, when facing such situations, we often dither, advancing toward and then retreating from whatever has captured our attention. But with a little clarity and a few instructions, you can break through this kind of ambivalence, embracing experiences that alarm you even as they deeply appeal. Like salting bland food, this can turn your life from dull to delicious.

A Fascinating Fright


Go ahead and think of something that both intrigues and scares you. It might be profound, like falling in love, or relatively trivial, like Roller Derby. (No offense, ladies. I'm fascinated by the idea of women who could stomp me to paste.) If you're having trouble coming up with something, look for the word but in your statements of desire: "I'd love to make more friends, but I have social anxiety." "I'd give anything to travel, but I'm afraid to fly." "I'm dying to express my real feelings—but then I'd actually have to speak to my sister-in-law."

Now plop your but down in the space below. Write the scary thing you want to do, and the fear that's keeping you from doing it:

I want _____________________________, but I'm afraid_________________________.

Identifying this fascinating fear is a first step to a more fulfilling life. Next, you need to get familiar with a couple of crucial rules.

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