Ask HN: How do you work with the fear of your own incompetence?
Aha, fear of mistake. Fear of others thinking I&#x27;m not good enough. Fear of loosing my job&#x2F;status&#x2F;life.<p>Fear rules life. Not even just humans but all animals and living creatures. You are not alone. It rules my life too. Now what is this fear? Why should I have it? Can I have no fear?<p>Trying to eliminate one fear is not enough, soon you&#x27;ll be filled with another. In fact, fear fears itself.<p>I think fear is what conditions me into being who I am. The I, is built using different fears -- borders that should not be crossed. The fear of society, bad grade, loosing good status... oh, everything!<p>Now I ask myself, what is the point of maintaining this &quot;I&quot; if death is going to eliminate it. Because after all, it is too much work, constantly thinking&#x2F;working to maintain a life that is marked as &quot;APPROVED&quot; by society, enforced by fear. Then once you get that &quot;APPROVED&quot; mark you fear loosing it... right?<p>Think about it. It is crazy. I&#x27;m full of fear of crossing rules at this very moment of writing... what if people don&#x27;t like my answer, what if that is grammatically incorrect. What is the point of this constant fear?<p>It is simple, we have all these fears in the hope of preventing the experience of pain. It is ultimately the fear of experiencing pain, discomfort and ultimately death.<p>Now I have some suggesting... things that I do myself and have seen great improvement in my life having a lot less fear.<p>A) Study all your actions and see the trace of fear in all of them -- this opens up a world of understanding... soon you get it, it is all out of fear. Even love is mostly based on fear (but it does not have to be)<p>B) Eliminate the fear by thinking of death. Yes the most feared of all fears. We reject death and try to avoid it like any other fear, but with death it is even worse because it is the most feared, we go as far as subconsciously deny it. But if death does not work for you, face the experience that the fear is trying to prevent, face it, like a warrior (don&#x27;t fight) but face it, and look at its eyes, is this the actual monster that you think it is? or is fear, the real monster?<p>C) Soon, a life that is driven by less fear, teaches you great important lessons, beautiful experiences that we miss because of these stupid fears. These experiences are already happening but we cannot see because of fear.<p>Now let me talk about the experiences... eating is 100x more enjoyable, loosing weight is 100x easier, heck even waiting in traffic light is enjoyable (when there is no fear you enjoy your own being). Also one&#x27;s reaction to difficult situations is going to be 100x better when fear does not rule it all.<p>Enjoy a life with no fear, like a warrior, go to work, own the moment. If you get fired, just or unjust, face it, do the next thing. Speak up and listen with no fear. Also realize that others, your boss and co-workers are also driven by fear. Soon you feel not only your own action but other people actions, when I say feel, I mean you can actually feel their action with empathy and love -- after all they are suffering from the same monster: fear.<p>Also, most people that I talk to about this, think that once you eliminate all these fears and tendencies, you become a man of no action. That is not true, fear is defining the reaction, not actions. Once you are free of reacting to situations then you free to act instead of react -- this is very important to understand.<p>Also some people at first, once they look, they become afraid of having all these fears (again, another fear). Don&#x27;t be afraid of having fears, own it, face this person full of fears, face the &quot;I&quot;, then ask, who is the one looking at this, with no fear? and then remain in that state, all the time.<p>Wish you the best!