Fear of the unknown - Sumiko Tan (Sunday Lifestyle, 16 May 2010)

A colleague made a remark the other day which gave me a bit of a jolt.

"In the 1.5 years that I've known you, I've noticed that you always make a U-turn whever you face the unknown," he said.

Wow, I thought, I'd never realised that about myself.

I'd been confiding in him via the office instant messaging system about a dilemma I'd found myself in.

It wasn't the first time I'd sought his advice or, to be more accurate, unloaded my laments onto him (poor guy).

He knows me fairly well by now or, at least, he's in the loop about the many permutations of my mental state. (That's the beauty of instant messaging, isn't it? You can be personal yet keep an impersonal distance, whether you're the person seeking advice or giving it.)

His words were food for thought. Was he right? Do I really fear the unknown and flee from it? Am I the sort who would rather stick to the familiar? What is it I'm really afraid of?

I thought about the crossroads I've faced in my life and realised that he was not wrong.

Faced between striding with what I'm comfortable with, I have often scooted back to the road most travelled.

That's probably the reason I'm still unmarried at my grand old age, why I've stuck to the same job for 25 years and lived in the same house fo 37.

It's also why I return again and again to eat at the same restaurants, why I revisit the same holiday destinations every year, and why I've stuck to the same Sunday routine for donkey's years - wake up, go for yoga, shop, home, dinner, CSI, sleep. (And yes, it's also why my columns deal with the same topics too.)

I look at people I've grown up with and, goodness, it's like I'm floating in a time warp.

Some have children already in their mid-teens, entering national service even. They have graduated through so many stages of their lives, sold and bought homes, dealt with in-laws, survived the stress of their children's exams and live through other such grown-up things, whereas I am stuck in the same old groove.

It's not a bad groove, of course, and I've many things to be thankful for and for which i am, but what if more exciting experiences await if I were more daring? Or let's not even talk about exciting, just different experiences?

But I don't like shocks to my system. I don't like feeling awkward. I don't like being put to a test. I like things to be predictable, dull even. I'm too lazy to change the way my life is. It takes so much effort and the thought of it makes me want to just curl up and sleep instead. Besides, what if I make a change and things go wrong? Why risk failure?

The problem is, the more one focuses on the megative aspects of a change, the more real the fear of those negatives becomes, and self-fulfilling too.

What is clear, though, is that the few times in my life that I ahve allowed myself to do something out of character have been liberating.

That same colleagues pointed out how I'd taken up bowling last year and didn't regret it. Now, bowling is not something any of my friends would imagine me doing given how unadventurous I am, but I decided one day that I wanted to learn it.

I bought a ball and shoes, got a coach, went down to a bowling alley and learnt to bowl. I ventured outside my comfort zone, met new people and it was fun. It was a personal milestone.

It is natural to dear the unknown. Who isn't afraid? But something must be wrong when that fear so inhibits you that you miss out on opportunities that can make a positive difference to your life.

What compounds my problem is that I, ironically, find the concept of happiness scary. I strive for happiness yet am afraid when it comes a-knocking. (There's even a term for fear of happiness - cherophobia.)

I'm not what you'd call an upbeat or extroverted person and I like to maintain a state of perpetual glumness.

Any time something threatens to make me happy, I'll talk to myself or the thing down so that I'm no longer on cloud nine.

I find it hard to take compliments and if someone were to say to me:"What a pretty dress you have on", I'll immediately try and think of something negative to say so that I'm taken down a peg or two - "Thanks but I'm putting on weight and the dress is getting really tight" or "Oh, it's just a cheap dress and not well-made at all." I am more tha a little wary of hubris.

I'm afraid of being happy because experience has shown that whenever I get carried away, something bad will happen, so better not risk it.

One episode is still clear in my mind.

Many years ago, I did a signing session after a book I'd written was launched. It went well and I was as pleased as punch with myself. I drove home with a grin on my face.

At a road junction, I mis-read a traffic light and nearly hit a car head-on. It was a good lesson on the dangers of being smug. I've since never allowed myself to be on any sort of high.

To folks like me, happiness is cyclical. We've discovered that unhappiness invariably follows happiness, so it's best to keep your head down, stay under the radar and control your emotions.

Besides, if I'm negative about something and something negative really materialises, then I won't feel too let down as I had predicted this all along.

It's perverse, I know, and pop psychologists will have a field day with people like me.

Can it be that I had once experienced such great happiness only to have it end so abruptly and painfully that I never wanted to be put in a situation where it might happen again?

Whatever the reasons, I've become comfortable with my glumness. It's my shield against future unhappiness.

But surely I can change and must, especiallywhen an opportunity to do so stares me in the face?

Yes, it's certainly more painful to lose a new-found happiness than it is to be constantly unhappy. But spending your life feeling perpetually morose - or forcing yourself to be so even when you aren't, really - prevents you from embracing beautiful moments that might come your way if you only gave yourself a chance.

Thinking positively won't be easy. We instinctively return to beliefs we've depended on to cope with the ups and downs of life.

Maybe it's just a matter of repeating to myself statements like "It's okay to be happy" or "I'm grateful for my happiness" - cheesy though such self-affirming statements sound.

A character in a Japanese movie once said that "humans are cowards in the face of happiness. It takes courage to hold on to happiness".

Courage - and the ability to conquer your fear and take a leap into the great unknown.