Fear vs. Excitement

Embracing their Presence

You’re sitting there in the waiting room wearing a suit, with a few copies of your resume and a forced, anxious smile on your face. You are well past the point of preparation. You’re about to walk into your interview to be questioned by someone who you might end up working with for the next decade, or someone who you may never see again in your life. You have the career-equivalent of butterflies in your stomach; a pong ball bouncing from fear on one side to excitement on the other. Fear because of why they might not choose you, and excitement for what good could come from your imagined future career.Many times fear and excitement can be indistinguishable from one another. Other times they are oil and water, distinctly separate. Whether a job interview, a first date, or your wedding day, they are always both present. Neither can be entirely silenced, only tamed. In the waiting room before your interview, excitement is quietly observing while fear bounces off the walls. On your first date, fear and excitement lock arms and dance gracefully together. On your wedding day, fear is sitting contently in the back, while excitement takes the stage.Fear and excitement arrive when life asks something of you. They are signals whether you see them and give them the attention they respectively deserve or not. They come about when an outcome matters enough to demand your attention. They appear when the cost of inaction has risen and when standing by is no longer an option. I have to imagine a decision point of yours comes to mind. Should you call their name in consideration of their presence, one or both will answer. The one who doesn’t answer is not absent, but chose to stay silent.To embrace one without acknowledging the other is to fail to understand what is being asked of you. When fear overwhelms you, it is worth asking what growth might live on the other side of it. When excitement is all that you see, it is worth searching for the fear quietly hiding behind it. Together, they point toward the same truth, that something meaningful is being offered, and you are being asked whether to step forward or remain where you are. To arm wrestle with fear with the confidence that you will win, or to solemnly shake hands with excitement knowing nothing will change.