Today, after finishing the exercise, I couldn’t help thinking about the infamous scene in “A Few Good Men” where Jack Nicholson shouted “You can’t handle the truth!” Today’s exercise was about facing the truth about what I am afraid of.
I’ve said to myself for years that I fear dying alone, or waking up one day to find I’ve missed the best parts of life. But if those fears were really driving me, you’d expect to see some evidence. Yet when I zoom in on my actual choices—how I use my time, what I say yes or no to—there’s no real trace of those fears. They are familiar thoughts, not behavioral engines.
I flipped the exercise around. I looked not at the fears I claim to have, but at the actions I consistently avoid. From there, I began asking: what fear must be present to cause this level of resistance? The answers weren’t a shock, but it was useful to see how the patterns played out across different arenas.
The most common fears were the fear of humiliation, ostracism, and discovering that someone was never really my friend. That last one I’ve often misnamed as the fear of betrayal. But betrayal, when I looked closer, is simply the moment of recognition when I learn that someone was never who I had believed they were. It’s not the solely pain of being attacked, but also the pain of being jolted awake from a pleasant delusion.
My ideal self would take swift action, embracing uncertainty when the mission is right. My ideal self draws strength from the knowledge that he is not alone—that God, truth, and creativity are allies in the work of building a meaningful life. My ideal self is not reckless, but he is uncompromising. He would rather face bodily harm or even death than co-sign evil.
That version of me is predictable, and even boring. The stoic always tells me to ignore feelings and do what I committed to. The professional always says to act like it’s my job. The artist tells me to keep creating daily, whether I feel inspired or not. These voices are my hedgehogs—singular in focus, consistent in tone. The shadow voices, in contrast, are clever, wild, and seductive. They offer a different theory every day. They are foxes in the Jim Collins sense—always scheming, never delivering.
I have come to believe the shadows are not useless. They exist for a reason. Sometimes the Whipping Clown can help me laugh at past pain. Sometimes the fantasizer exposes a longing I’ve been too ashamed to name. The key is not to eliminate the shadow, but to keep it in its place. Shadows can consult, but they cannot sit in the driver’s seat.
I am beginning to think that the real antidote to fear is truth, and not just abstract or scientific truth, but truth of a particular kind: truth about myself, truth about my Creator, truth about the unseen. The challenge, of course, is that part of the truth is I do not want the truth. That resistance is built into human nature, and I am not exempt.
I am wondering about the possibility of a new practice: applying paradoxical intention (Viktor Frankl’s concept that he spoke about in Man’s Search For Meaning) to truth-seeking. Before I investigate a question, I will ask: “What answer am I secretly hoping to find?” When I ask someone else for help, I could tell them what I want them to say—just to put the bias on the table. If the answer I want appears to be the right answer, I could raise the standard of proof. The better the news, the greater the skepticism. Sort of the opposite of “Shoot The Messenger.”
I haven’t read ahead to the other exercises yet and I don’t remember what we came up with for day 15. As has been the pattern with other exercises I am walking away with a glimmer of clarity and hope.