Revisiting Old Daunts

I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we all have “ordinary” situations that we consistently find intimidating or overwhelming. I’m not talking about walking through a sketchy neighborhood in the middle of the night or even a phobia that might keep you off a plane (some call that aerophobia, I call it TSAphobia…but I digress). What I’m talking about are those common events that stress you out even when you only think about doing them. I know I’ve got a couple that rear their heads from time-to-time.

There’s one common action that has always given me pause: talking on the phone. More even than talking to people “out in the world”, the prospect of talking on the phone makes me search for alternatives (thank you, SMS and Internet). Growing up in an age when a house had one phone, wired to the wall, and shared by all, this wasn’t really an issue for young me. We didn’t use the phone unless it was necessary. Sure, I’d have high-stress conversations with female-type-people…but the stress had less to do with the phone than it did with that boy/girl stuff.

I wasn’t fully aware of the phone being generally daunting for me until high school. I was the yearbook’s business manager. One of my duties was to call people and businesses whenever there was a money-glitch. Oh, how that device with the rotary dial intimidated me.

To this day, I’ll avoid using the phone if I can. I rarely answer it unless it’s for business or it’s someone I actually know and like in real life (thank you CallerID). My friends know that I rarely initiate calls—though that’s only partly due to phone-daunt.

On a professional level, I’m most daunted by marketing. Nothing can make me have brain-lock faster than trying to market myself. This has long been a personal handicap, especially being that I’ve had my own business from time-to-time. I’m often reminded of something Richard Feynman wrote about how vexing he found the Japanese language:

“Would you like to glance at my lousy garden?” is essentially what you’re saying in the first case, but when you want to look at the other fella’s garden, you have to say soemthing like, “May I observe your gorgeous garden?” So there’s two different words you have to use.

[…]

“In the temple, the gardens are much more elegant. So you have to say something that would be equivalent to ‘May I hang my eyes on your most exquisite gardens?'”^[1]

This illustrates what I’ve always found so daunting about marketing: I “hang my eyes” on your wares but I’m blocked when trying to get you to “glance at my lousy” product—even if my product is better. People have tried to get me through this, but it just doesn’t work. I was raised to be humble; I guess those roots run deep.

I also don’t discount some Asperger-y side-effects help to enhance some of my discomfort, but I’ve seen too many “normal” people have to face down—or run from—their ordinary-life blockages, too. The fact is, while I’m perfectly fine writing a book and showing it to the public, or standing in front of a mass of people to speak to them, others find each of those activities extremely intimidating…dare I say: daunting.

We all have our strengths. So, too, do we all have our weaknesses. If only there were a good way to get those to interlock. Unfortunately, as just about every person who has ever tried to find and keep a mate has discovered: it’s a lot easier said than done.

¹ Feynman, Richard et.al. “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”. New York: W.W. Norton, 1985.