For my fear assignment I have decided to address a general worry or anxiety in my life that something is about to go wrong, that there is something I can do about it, but I'm never sure exactly what the problem will be or how I am supposed to address it...
In some ways, this is a fear of the unknown which is very common in a lot of people. For me, this manifests as a feeling of responsibility for a lot of things that are often entirely out of my control. I find myself feeling responsible for the happiness and success of everyone around me, for the ongoing success of my family's business, and even for the state of the country, the world, or humanity at large.
In reality, I am just a college kid and I have no power over anything except myself in the present moment, Sometimes, this clarifying realization brings me a moments' peace, but more often it sounds to me like an excuse. The greatest people in history didn't let such limitations stop them from saving thousands of lives or influencing entire generations towards a more peaceful and harmonious human existence. Perhaps it is unfair to myself to compare my own ambition to theirs, or perhaps it is simple arrogance on my part, but any one of the people you or I consider great were just that... people. People with the same flaws and fears as the rest of us, but a super human drive to overcome them. If they could do it, shouldn't I be able to as well?
It is this idea that both drives and cripples my personal growth. The last several months of my life have been a showcase of this effect. The family business, for the first year in our history, hasn't shown any growth and as a public relations/marketing major, solving this feels like one area where I should be able to shine, and where failure shouldn't even be an option. I've also had two friends make attempts on their own lives, both of whom have relied heavily on me for support and in both cases I felt as though their lives rested entirely on my shoulders and if either of them had gone through with it, I would have felt like a murderer. The weeks spent battling the darkest depths of depression at their sides took a serious toll on me, albeit one I would gladly take again if need be.
The fear that I might be unable to save my family's livelihood or the lives of my friends, among many other things I'd rather not go into, have driven me to near insanity. I am exhausted, ragged, and now dealing with my own bouts of depression. And although this fear has also driven me to make great strides on behalf of all these situations which I have very little true influence over, it has done tremendous damage to the things I truly do have control over. My grades have plummeted this semester as have my health, eating and sleeping schedules, and general focus. I've been so caught up in the fear of not being able to perform perfectly that I've actually taken steps backwards in my own growth. And for this I feel... pathetic, I guess. Weak,
When this project came up, I was both looking forward to it and dreading it. The idea of facing and overcoming my fears appeals to me. The idea of spending any more time dealing with extremely serious situations made me want to throw up. I decided to deal with my fear of failure by saying "fuck it" and having a good time... by playing video games.
I decided to play Fallout 3, an open world role-playing game based almost entirely around the player's decisions. In any game of this type where you are given choices, I always play the good guy due to the nagging stress of making a wrong decision. In fact, even when I consciously decide to start out as a bad guy, it never lasts long and I end up an anti-hero at worst because making the "bad" decisions comes with the same subconscious fear that I'll be screwing someone over (which you almost always are by being evil in these games). So, upon this play through, I made a total commitment to playing a complete and utter sociopath.
Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic America and one of the first major settlements you come across is called Megaton. Megaton is a small city of very nice characters built around an unexploded megaton nuke remnant from the war that ended civilization. Your character has the choice of either disarming the bomb for good or rigging it to explode for money. I, against every fiber of my being, decided to blow the place sky high. But first, I knew that there was one person I wanted to save: Jericho, a former highwayman who you can convince to fight at your side. The only way to convince him to join you, however, is to gain ridiculous amounts of bad karma until your character is pure evil. This became my challenge.
I Googled the best ways to become evil as fast as possible in Fallout 3. As it turns out, one of the most evil things you can do in the game is capture people and sell them into slavery. This isn't as easy as it sounds. Well, capturing people is very easy. The hard part is that all of these characters are so extremely well written that, despite being fictional, I felt like a total dick almost every time,
After about 8 hours of being a completely self-centered scumbag, selling countless innocent NPCs into slavery, and committing mass murder by way of nuke, I actually felt more relaxed than I had been for weeks. I faced my anxiety of not doing the right thing by making a satire of it and although I still feel bad about all that virtual evil, I also feel refreshed. I feel ready to face the day-to-day concerns of life without a nagging fear of the things outside my control. I feel capable of doing good again.
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