Choosing between fear and love

Before first grade, I hadn’t thought much about how my words or actions could have the potential to hurt the people around me. I remember during one brisk, cloudy afternoon at my elementary school, everyone in our class had dispersed across the crowded blacktop at recess to play a game of tag. One of my friends, a girl named Melissa, started running after me as soon as she became “it” and grabbed hold of the edge of my jacket. I quickly slipped out of the coat to avoid getting tagged, and soon the two of us were each pulling on a sleeve at either end trying to get the other to let go. Both of us laughed and shuffled our feet in playful nervousness as we watched to see who would yield first.

In the next few moments, however, the laughter came to a halt. Without thinking of the consequences, I suddenly heaved the coat as hard as I could, pulling Melissa forward before she could catch herself and causing her to fall harshly onto the blacktop. Seizing this as an opportunity to escape, I ran away with the satisfaction of evading capture without even thinking to look back and see if she was okay. But around me, the game had stopped as the other kids started running over with expressions of concern etched onto their faces. Slowly I turned and saw Melissa on the ground crying, my jacket still clutched loosely in her hand.

“You should go tell her you’re sorry,” the other kids advised me. Deep down I knew they were right, but I was too bewildered to listen. I couldn’t register what had just happened: did I really make her cry? No, it couldn’t be; I was a good kid, and good kids don’t do these sorts of things. “She must not really be hurt,” I remember thinking to myself—there’s no reason for me to apologize. Besides, if she was going to injure herself so easily, then maybe she shouldn’t have been playing in the first place.

I don’t remember if I ever explicitly apologized to Melissa—kids tend to forget about these playground mishaps pretty quickly—so after a few days we acted like it never happened. But what I do remember, even fourteen years later, is the fact that I had clearly seen someone close to me hurt because of my own carelessness and still pitilessly ignored her. Instead of showing compassion and owning up to my mistake, I walked to the opposite side of the playground and tried to pretend nothing had happened. It’s funny how after all this time, my pathetic attempt to repress my guilt back then has only since caused it to fester more saliently. I don’t think the shame I felt in that moment will ever go away.

Since that day, I’ve been haunted by the persistent fear of hurting anyone close to me. On the surface, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. Indeed, it’s this constant vigilance for the welfare of others that reminds us of how we are living for more than just ourselves. It propels us to act cautiously and to do everything in our power to protect those precious to us like, for instance, the way our parents might take excessive measures to ensure our safety for fear of what might happen to us.

But oftentimes, when our relationships are driven primarily by our fears, we start engendering within ourselves the very attributes we dread the most. We become the kind of person we sought to eradicate. I used to believe that I neglected to apologize to Melissa at the playground because I was too heartless to empathize with her pain. Now, however, I’ve come to think just the opposite: I turned my back not because I failed to identify with her distress but because I identified with it too much. I cared deeply about my friend and wanted nothing more than for all of us to laugh and be happy. But as I watched her cry because of something I had done, the dissonance I felt tore me apart and made me want to ignore the anguish that tormented me from the inside. In effect, I wasn’t just walking away from her cries; I was walking away from the pain of confronting my own character.

Here lies a crucial difference, in my mind, between fearing for a person’s safety and truly loving that person. When we’re afraid, we are concerned instinctually with ourselves. We might take action to protect our friends, but if we’re being truly honest, such precautions often stem from an anxiety to alleviate the guilt and terror we ourselves might experience if something were to happen to them. But when we love, the object of our concern shifts fundamentally from us to the people we care about. No longer do we take action to prevent our own pain—instead, we move in response to a selfless desire that seeks only what’s best for others, especially when it comes at our own expense. Fear tends to breed suspicion, guilt and shame, but love yields trust, forgiveness and sacrifice between people.

We might not be aware of it, but too many of our relationships are rooted to a foundation of fear that is fixated instinctually on serving ourselves. If I had truly been concerned about Melissa more than myself at the playground, then my dread of possibly hurting a friend wouldn’t have paralyzed me from helping one who had already been hurt. What if we were to let go of the firm grip that many of us hold on our self-concepts as good people and focus instead on actually striving to become good people? Maybe if I had just let go of the jacket, neither Melissa nor I would’ve had to experience the estranging pain that came about from my stubbornness.