讓微笑綻放
拾趣
As a French major in college， I had the opportunity to work as a nanny for a wealthy French family. I don’t remember the details exactly， but I do remember that they lived in what seemed like a palatial townhouse in Manhattan， had several homes in Europe， and planned to spend the summer traveling， child and nanny in tow. Whatever the challenges of accompanying this particular family might have been， the chance to travel widely throughout Europe was not only exciting but also unavailable to me any other way at the time. Plus I adored kids， and was planning on teaching. It seemed a great fit. Yet I was afraid to take the job； afraid the family wouldn’t like me； afraid I would be lonely； afraid I wouldn’t be able to care for the child well； afraid I’d miss my boyfriend and my family. So I stayed home that summer， living in my parents’ house and working in an office at a perfectly nice， decently paying， perfectly boring job. To keep myself amused， I read novels set in Paris and Venice， wondering what it would be like to go there. Time after time in the years that followed， various opportunities shined on me， lighting the way to potential adventure， but my fear stretched out before me like a shadow， dimming the prospects.
The strange thing is， if I were thrown into a situation in which there might actually be something to be afraid of—a sinking canoe， to choose a random example， or a building fire—I know that I would deal with it well， not lose my head or become paralyzed with anxiety but take care of business， be effective in the moment. I’ve handled things that prompted people to say，“That must have been incredibly scary，” though I didn’t feel overwhelmingly afraid at all. What， then， is the nature of my fear？ If I had to give it a name， I would call it “What if…”， because it derives all its power from the possibilities of what might happen at some point in the future and not what’s happening right now.
I can see how “What if…” might have been more useful a long time ago. In fact， I remember considering the idea of sliding down a banister in the house where I grew up—I must’ve been around three， because the banister seemed very high off the ground—and thinking，“Fun！ Long ride！ Fast！ New！”Then，“But what if when I get to the bottom， I fall off the end？” I certainly would have done had I followed through， with painful and injurious results.
The trouble is that somehow as I matured， asking “What if…” became a way of introducing every possible disaster that could happen， no matter how unlikely. Falling off the end became， in my mind， a probable result even when it wasn’t. And thinking about that， I began to want to avoid asking the question because it evoked too much anxiety. So I sought the comfortable and the familiar rather than the exciting and the exotic. It was easy， it was even joyful and delightful （as the comfortable and familiar can be）， but it was rarely challenging in a way that leads you to live your life to its fullest.