It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age (18 page)

Faith is believing what one cannot see,
and the reward of faith is to see what one believes.
St. Augustine

¹
Most of us learn this lesson in a college dormitory.

The Sky Is Always Falling

I read that 75 percent of Americans are now anxious and depressed and I thought, Well, I’m a little ahead of my time, aren’t I? The fact is that I have been on a state of high alert since high school. I didn’t need 9/11. I was uptight on 9/10.
Garry Shandling, quoted in
Servant
magazine

The Paranoid’s Guide to Life

1. If a tree falls in a forest, it’ll land on me.

2. A person with the Asian flu will be on my flight, sitting next to me . . . with a screaming, sneezing child on her lap.

3. The chances are excellent that there will be an earthquake today somewhere in the vicinity of where I’m standing.

4. I won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes? That can mean only one thing. I’ve got two weeks to live.

5. I think I’m being stalked. People are following my every step. I move, they move. I stop, they stop. I’ve got to get out of this line!

6. An apple a day raises your chances of choking by 400 percent.

7. Everybody hates me, except mosquitoes. And they only use me as a last resort.

8. If I take cover in a storm cellar, a tornado will actually form inside it.

9. The only thing we have to fear is . . . where do I start?

10. A bird in the hand will mean a bite in the palm. Or worse.

11. The best laid plans of mice and men will both be better than mine.

12. I finally have a day off to go to the beach. A tsunami must be coming.

13. This is the first day of the rest of my disasters.

But We Don’t Have to Live in Fear

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
Samuel Butler

People are built to handle varying degrees of worry. First, there are the ones who worry about everything. The Chicken Littles. They run around telling the world that the sky is falling. They worry about the stock market crashing, World War III breaking out, Y3K, California falling into the ocean after a ten-point earthquake, rare virus outbreaks, and any number of other calamities befalling the world’s population. Not that those things can’t or won’t happen,
1
but the possibility of their happening in the future can dominate our present, if we let it.

Then there are the people on the other end of the spectrum. The daredevils. The Evel Knievels of this world who don’t lose a minute of sleep over anything. If the sky starts to fall, they’ll just open their umbrella and go on about their day. They’ll buy property right on top of an earthquake fault or at the base of a volcano. There are some people who will even go on tornado chasing tours.
2
That’s right, these people pay someone to drive them
to
a tornado. Now, when it comes to tornadoes,
to
isn’t the direction we would recommend.
Away
seems like it would be a much better trip. Don’t get us wrong. We’re not saying you have to be a worrywart, or a Chicken Little for that matter, but when it comes to your personal safety, we just feel it’s best to use common sense and balance. Don’t be extreme in either direction. Don’t picnic by an alligator-infested swamp, even if it is the Fourth of July and it’s the last picnic table available. But don’t hide out in your house worrying about a giant mosquito swooping you up the minute you step outside, either. Unless you live in Alabama.

To help you know what is appropriate to stress over and what isn’t (for instance, funnel clouds are a justified stress, funnel cakes aren’t), we have provided the following list:

Justified Stress:

Global warming

Natural disasters

Getting mugged

Losing a job

Bullies

A shopping cart totaling your parked car (given the right wind conditions, it could happen)

Things Not to Fear:

All of the above

Why? The explanation is found in Isaiah 26:3: ‘‘You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.’’

¹
If you’re paranoid, we wish to point out that they likely will happen on Wednesday, May 3.

²
Exhibit A: The film
Twister
.

Top Ten Fears

According to people who research these kinds of things, the top ten fears are:

10. Dogs

9. Loneliness

8. Flying

7. Death

6. Sickness

5. Deep water

4. Financial problems

3. Insects and bugs

2. Heights

1. Public speaking

Did you notice that the number one fear isn’t death? It’s public speaking. Public speaking has caused death (for both the speaker, if he’s nervous, and for the audience, if he’s boring), but we personally find it interesting that on a list of fears, it’s number one and death is number seven. People would rather rest in the casket than be the one to read the eulogy. But let’s take a look at these fears and examine each one a little more closely.

Dogs.
Sure, they can bite, but can they drive? If you’re stressing over getting bitten by some ferocious pitbull, look on the positive side. Yes, the dog could very well bite your leg off, but can he drive a car and track you down? Of course not. So calm down. You never have to worry about getting hit by a car being driven by a dog, except in Walt Disney movies. Now, doesn’t that make you feel better already?

Loneliness.
Is it really all that bad? To feel better about your loneliness, imagine yourself opening your door to unexpected company that includes three toddlers and a teenage punk rocker who brought along his electric guitar. Still feel lonely? Still longing for ‘‘a little company’’? Or does your peace and quiet suddenly look bearable?

Flying.
I (Martha) once sat next to a teenager on her very first flight. She was pretty apprehensive, but I think it was mainly the result of not knowing what to expect. As the plane began to taxi its way toward the runway, she turned to me and asked, ‘‘Do the wings flap when we take off?’’ Fear of the unknown can be a terrible thing. But when it comes to flying, if you focus on everything that will be happening once you get to your destination (reconnecting with loved ones, the vacation of a lifetime, business opportunities, or just a weekend of fun at a place you’ve always wanted to go), it’ll make the flight seem that much more enjoyable and speedy. And for those of you who really don’t know, to answer the question, no, the wings don’t flap when you take off. If they ever do, make them stop the plane and then go choose a different airline.

Death.
Sure, it’s a reality, but since we don’t know those expiration dates we talked about, none of us really knows where or when it’s going to happen, do we? I wonder how many people are still walking around today who thought twenty years ago they were a goner. Don’t waste your life worrying about your death. When it happens, you’ll be the first one to know.

Sickness.
Even if we take all the precautions possible (wear surgical masks, stay away from people, sterilize our dishes four or five times), we can still get sick. Sure, it’s wise not to put ourselves in situations where we are exposed unnecessarily to germs. But we don’t have to hide away in our basements trying to escape from them, either. Again, a happy balance is the best. If you’re still not sure, skip back a few pages to The Paranoid’s Guide to Life.

Deep water.
Do you know you can drown in shallow water just as easily as you can drown in deep water? All it takes is for water to fill your lungs, and that can happen if you’re lying face-down by the steps of the kiddie pool as well as in the twelve-foot-deep section. I (Martha) had a near drowning experience once. (I know I’m blond, but it wasn’t because I couldn’t shut off the drinking fountain.) It was a real drowning experience, so water is a fear of mine. But I admit that sometimes it’s an irrational fear. The ‘‘No Lifeguard’’ sign over my bathtub is probably taking things a little too far. (Yes, I really do have one.)

Financial problems.
They say the number one thing that couples fight about is money. Usually it’s the lack of it, but believe it or not, in some instances it’s the abundance of it. If you don’t think too much money can be a problem, just follow an estate dispute after some rich relative dies. People who have been close since birth will suddenly not speak to one another for the rest of their lives—over what? Uncle Buford’s double-wide trailer and his forty shares of Studebaker stock?

The apostle Paul warned us about this attitude when he said that he had learned to be content in all things. He said, ‘‘I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want’’ (Philippians 4:12). In other words, if you have the money to cruise the Mediterranean this summer, be content. If all you can afford is a pedal-boat ride at a local amusement center, be content. If you’re living in a mansion, be content. If you’re sleeping in the broom closet at work, be content. If you’re eating steak and lobster, be content. If you’re eating corn dogs and goldfish crackers, be content. Those who have learned to adjust to their circumstances are the ones who won’t break when the going gets tough and the money gets going.

Insects and bugs.
Sure, bugs are icky. No one likes to put their feet under a blanket and find a daddy longlegs down there waiting to jump on you. But do insects and bugs really deserve the power we’ve given them? Let’s face it, we’re a whole lot bigger than they are. They’re the ones who should be fearing us. But do they? Seriously, do they? No, they laugh at us. They see us cowering behind the sofa whenever we see one of them up in the corner of our ceiling. They’re at least eight feet away from us and we’re frozen in fear. They hear us screaming for our spouse to bring us a shoe, a board, or some other ‘‘weapon,’’ and you know they’ve got to be laughing their little opisthosomata off over all of this drama. We can easily step on these creatures, we can flatten them in less than a second, yet the very thought of them keeps us up at night and has us paying a hundred dollars every three months for an exterminator to come to our home and spray poison all over our baseboards (poison that we ourselves have to leave the house for). Does this make any sense? We even cringe looking at dead insects. What happened to our courage, people? Our ancestors used to sleep out in the desert on rocks. Who knows what kind of critters crawled across their faces in the middle of the night. But did they run and hide? Did they scream for their spouses to wake up and save them? Of course not. And don’t even get us started on flying insects. A single bee can get us running faster than an Olympic gold medalist. One wasp flying around outside our car will have us rolling up the windows and locking the doors like it was some kind of serial killer. And if it’s on our windshields, the closest we’ll get to it is our windshield wipers. How silly we must look to these creatures. When are we going to quit allowing them to control us? When are we going to stand up and finally show some courage? And when is someone going to come in here and kill that spider in the corner of the office that we’ve had our eye on for the last twenty minutes?