"We suffer more often in imagination than we do in reality." -Seneca

Overcoming my real and imagined fears, and actively seeking more fear, has become an important cornerstone of my frame for a range of reasons. Control of your real and imagined fears is a prerequisite of a Leader, dare I say, an Alpha. It’s a topic I'd like to expand on here.

In essence, fear can be divided into real and imagined fear. Real fear is obvious – if you swim in the ocean and see a big shark, that’s real fear, because you might really die. If you refuse to swim in the ocean because of worry about sharks you cannot see, that’s imagined fear, created in your head. I challenge you to think about how often you seek and experience real fear, which is pretty easily avoided in modern everyday life.

By contrast, imagined fear is a preoccupation with the unknown, specifically possible outcomes in the future. Fear of the unknown manifests as anxiety quickly because humans have a large brain that likes to ‘run possible scenarios’. This has positive uses such as creativity and problem solving. But some problems you are trying to solve have no easy solution or there are too many unknowns to be able to settle on a single most likely solution. Unsolvable MRP problems such as your wife’s potential infidelity leads you to seek further evidence through ‘hamstering’ or ‘looking for signs’.

Where real fear is no longer common in modern society every day life, Anxiety and overthinking are extremely common and unique to all of us - e.g. fear of plane travel. Your brain can’t compute the concept of flying through the air, but your brain knows is that if you are up high and there is nothing below, you are going to fall. And if you are high enough, you are going to die. Hence the logical connection between plane flight and death. But you ‘know’ flying is safe, so all you can do is buckle up and listen to the pilots announcement and make an assessment as to whether or not he/she sounds like a ‘good pilot’. Maybe you try to pick their nationality from their name and think about if they are good at pilot training in that country. You probably also look at how close you are to the exit, and if that fat dude in the exit row is really going to be able to open the door on this tin can we are all in.

All of what I described since you got on the plane is overthinking in response to your fear of falling and dying. Overthinking and ways to manage it has already been covered here so I'll leave it at that.

Stoicism and OI are the number one theories that explain how to control your unknown fears. But this does not address the active seeking of real fear. If you want to grow as a man you need to find some real fear, seek it out and face it head on - get out there and scare yourself, do something with a bit of risk. Lifting and regular sports won't give you what i am talking about. Like I have said before, once in a while you need to arrive home thinking, "I am glad I made it out of that!". So stop being a pussy and get out of your comfort zone - Harness what you had when you were 20 if that helps. A little bit of real fear in your life will wipe away those imaginary concerns that your wife's last text message seemed "a bit short". Instead you'll arrive home with the look of a man who has been outdoors, seeing shit and doing shit, and 'she' is the last thing on your mind. And that is attractive.

Facing and controlling your real and imagined fears should be a priority area for your ongoing development. Proving such mastery of fear is a clear indication of a leader of men.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato