Like many of us, I’m back to work today, the first Monday of the new year. As soon as I leave here, I’ll be on the bus to Oxford with a long to-do-list: lessons to prepare, courses to plan, colleagues and students to see, admin to keep up with, research to start, writing to finish.
Even thinking about that list makes my mouth dry and my scalp prickle because, as 2016 starts, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of failing, of not being good enough, of what people might think, of being found out. It’s all a bit tragic, really. It’s the Big Fear.
But I don’t reckon I’m that unusual: lots of us are afraid. And The Fear makes it much, much harder to get things done. Sometimes The Fear leaves me in danger of doing nothing at all.
So it was an instructive pleasure to spend yesterday morning trying and failing to write this, while listening to English cricketers Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow eviscerate the South African bowling attack in Cape Town. It was sublime, a moment to text my Dad, brother and sister to make sure they were listening too. Good grief, I was so excited I emailed California.
But although it was brutal, perhaps the most amazing thing about Ben Stokes’ innings was not the power and technical audacity of his hitting, or his astonishing scoring rate, but the utter fearlessness of the whole thing. He wasn’t chasing statistics or a target, just the next ball. He’d deal with that. No worries about the one after, just confidence in the moment. No fear.
Now, God knows about The Fear. ‘Do not be afraid’ is one of the commonest phrases in the Bible. But God doesn’t tell us not to be afraid because he thinks fear is silly. He tells us not to be afraid because he knows we’re gifted to deal with whatever he sends us to do. And he wants us to trust those gifts and get on with it.
Ben Stokes didn’t go out to bat with a long to-do-list for his innings. He just worked through 198 individual lists instead. One for every ball he faced.
So that’s what I’ll do. Not worry about the 198th thing, but trust that I’m equipped for the next. And then do it. Because there’s nothing to be afraid of there. Off I go to the bus, then.
I’m posting this in the middle of the Long, Strange and Frightening Hiatus of 2020 when it feels as if there is no list to work through but much to be afraid of. Pause for Thought has a certain obligation to be positive whenever possible but some days I’m afraid I don’t know how not to be afraid.