📌 The Good (vs. the Bad) Kind of Scary

How do you know when to push yourself to try something new, versus giving yourself grace NOT to? No, really, I'm asking--plus, what a nighttime scuba dive felt like and what kind of U2 fan I am.

I have complicated feelings about U2's discography. (On the one hand, YES! On the other hand, oh brother, if I wanted to go to church, I’d go to church or invite one of those suit-wearing door-to-door guys in for a chat.) I suppose if they were a sports team, I would be derisively described as a “fairweather fan”—though I prefer to think of myself as a song-by-song, sometimes hardcore fan of U2. 😂

This is all to say that their song Acrobat has been back in my rotation on my Spotify, which contains a line I’ve always enjoyed: “in dreams begin responsibilities.” (Side note: while many apparently think it’s a cynical song, I consider it just determined.) Anyhow, after some googling, I found out the line is a reference to a Delmore Schwartz short story, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” (which I then read/enjoyed!), who, in turn, borrowed that title from Yeats’s “Responsibilities” (which, after reading the epigraph—“In dreams begins responsibility. Old Play.”—I scrolled a bit while thinking, “I should read this sometime…”. )

Sorry, Yeats! I’ve got a blog post to finish!

Anyhow, it was a lot of dreams and responsibility talk/reading/listening, and I kept circling back to: when faced with something that scares us, how do we know when we should push ourselves or let it go? When does struggling make you stronger, and when does it just tire you out?

When do you call it a day?

I believe that doing scary things is an essential part of growing as a creator. I also think being brave is not the opposite of being scared—it’s just powering through something, anyway. Still, even with the “ooh, this seems ‘scary’ like a fun, loopy roller coaster, not ‘scary’ like walking a rural road with no shoulder at 2 a.m.” kind, things can quickly go sideways.

Here’s another story: a dark one, especially in that it takes place in the middle of a pitch-black summer night—under the sea.

When I was a teen, my father organized for him, my mom, and me to go on a nighttime dive during a family trip. Typically, I’m a photo bug; my favorite part of scuba diving is that you see (emphasis on “see”) the wildlife. But I had grown to love scuba diving, and though I knew the water would be dark and different after dusk, I was game enough. I wasn’t even really nervous until we started our descent, and all the starlight in the world seemed to quickly extinguish itself.

However, I had no idea HOW dark the nighttime ocean deep was--reader, it was so dark, I couldn't even see the bubbles to orient myself as to what was "up." Also (looking back), for some reason, the usual “partner up” thing here did not happen; my parents paired up with one another, and I was left to swim with neither my shadow (no light source to summon one) nor my echo (no ability to use my voice to summon one) to keep me company.

Like this, only…without the moonlight (because we were much deeper).

Outside of our wet suit and tank gear, we each had a small flashlight, and unlike in the air (where humans are meant to be at night and where light diffuses off to the sides of a light source), light apparently behaves quite differently underwater. We had to aim our single, focused beam specifically at any spot to see it; there was zero “around the beam” diffused light. Especially as I was by myself, to ensure I wasn’t about to clip a jagged piece of reef or accidentally face-plant into a moray eel, I found I had to wave it around continuously in a weird ♾️ pattern until my upper arm/wrist tired out, and I switched to the other side. Like the morays, daytime sharks and other reef creatures had always enchanted me! Now the THOUGHT of those same sharks paired with inky black in every direction caused me to forget to breathe.

You’d move your tiny flashlight…and randomly, this would be right next to you.

I was terrified and moving pretty slowly due to the arm waving and lack of visuals—but, unfortunately, whether because of adrenaline-fueled excitement (or, like me, fear), everyone else was really, really booking it. I fell farther and farther behind the group, their little lights becoming smaller and smaller pinpricks in the ebony distance. I was truly (truly!) out of my depth and the situation was becoming more and more untenable the harder it was to see the other lights. As I struggled to keep up (let alone catch up)—it finally struck me that they were so far away now that I had neither a way to signal for help nor anyone left to notice me. It was time to be bold.

I took a deep breath and blindly swam as fast as I could toward the tiny lights in the distance, anxious to close the distance. That is, I blindly swam until I hit something large and hard with the right side of my body (I still don’t know exactly what it was). Reflexively, I gasped, and my regulator popped out of my mouth. Unable to properly cough or sputter, I nearly dropped my flashlight as I choked a mouthful of salty ocean water down and girded myself to somehow create one extra-big breath from my aching lungs in order to clear my regulator and be able to breathe normally from the tank again.

Reader, this particular moment was so awful and scary that now I know “this truly might be the last thing I ever do” situations don’t cause your life to flash before you—instead, they summon one great big, heartfelt word into your head. “FUUUUUUUUU….”

I finished the dive—eventually clearing my regulator, catching my breath more gratefully than ever before or since, and then torpedoing through the dark towards some nonpareil-sized dots that I really hoped were divers’ flashlights. Once I finally caught up to a few stragglers, I stuck to them like a remora while reminding myself (continuously) to breathe. When we finally, finally started our ascent and broke the surface (in my case, truly feeling like Ariel from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, post-Ursula, desperate for a breath of “real” air), I somehow hauled myself back into the boat, every limb shaking and my heart beating unnaturally. (I do remember thinking, as I shivered into a towel, that I was the shittiest diver who ever dove—esp. when others were raving about the whole thing—and also, I came very close to possibly dying without even a soul noticing.) Dark, dark, dark. (I did warn you.)

Everyone on that boat, probably.

So—that potentially fun-scary thing turned out to be a bad-scary experience. It’s easy to say, now that I’m on dry land several decades later, it worked out fine—because I am fine. I didn’t have a true medical emergency (though I do think I baaaarely avoided THE BIG ONE). And I did learn a lot! In this case, I learned that this kind of dive is NOT my jam. Yes, in a growth mindset, I might say: I know what the ocean feels like at night in a visceral way that I wouldn't have before. I can close my eyes and accurately conjure what absolute terror feels like with zero effort.

But also…just how useful was it, really, to have had that experience? Am I truly better off for having been absolutely terrified for 45 minutes, really? I think…probably not. Sure, I’m writing about it now, but the main other times I’ve “used” it were only to calibrate other horrifying happenings. Me, getting an emergency c-section? Terrifying—but also, I was breathing normal, regular air at the time, and I was surrounded by knowledgeable medical professionals who were going to do their best for me and for my firstborn. So, still not quite as terrifying—I wasn’t alone. So, I guess there is that—perhaps it takes more to truly terrify me now?

I realize this got very hyperbolic; 99.9% of our choices to try something new don’t leave us truly fearing for our lives, unable to summon help. And I guess…that’s the point. 😂

So, here are some things for me to keep in mind when I’m trying to suss out what to do about a scary new opportunity and deciding whether to push myself to go for it—or let it pass while happily sipping tea.

• Do I really want to do this scary thing, or do I want to be able to say I did this (after the fact)? Those are two very different motivations, though I think we all have probably mistaken the second for the first on occasion. Still, the first one is the only one that matters.

• What, exactly, am I scared of? My most-serious scares are often that I am not up to the task. So, if I failed in pursuit of this thing—what would actually be the fall-out? (Often…it’s not much. It’s just that I have a delicate ego sometimes.)

• If I think I probably “should” try something scary as a growth opportunity, to what end? It’s great to follow my curiosity (I do it all the time!), but in a finite lifetime, is this really what I, at age 40mumblemumble, want to spend my remaining precious time pursuing?

• Am I trying to impress someone? Honestly, I almost always want some sort of imaginary gold star, so this can be enlightening. What helps is remembering that the truly remarkable people are the ones who do their own thing without caring what others think.

• Who can I ask for help if I get in trouble? So often we forget that others have done whatever it is that we want to do! In fact, it’s more likely (than not) that we actually know someone who has done that scary thing—because otherwise, how would we even know about it? Related, maybe you can ask for help to prepare! (Crazy, no? Why do I always forget this step?)

• What will be my signal to STOP doing whatever it is? I am still working on this despite the fact that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It helps when I tell myself it’s a break—that any given stoppage doesn’t have to be permanent.

How do you know what is worth challenging yourself to do—or to not? Always interested in tips and thoughts!

Your friendly neighborhood “pusher,”

Elayne

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