What is your worst fear?

being savaged by dogs

Death, I suppose. It's the only thing I ever really flip out about. Not that it's likely to do any good.

Dying a painful death.

Being at the end of my life and never having strangled an employer with my bare hands.

Having a child taken away from me.

I can't decide, either spiders or heights.

my worst fear...hmmm...i guess fear itself, followed closely by death

being caught in a fire!!!! that is the worst i could think of, fire has always been my fear, then i worked in a burn unit and it solidified it in my mind!

Suffocating, Drowning, Burning, my parent's death.

Diving into a swimming pool. I cannot do it. I fear drowning, although I can swim and I enjoy swimming.

I do not have the "normal" fears that I would think most people have. I have no fear of death, or of losing those I love, or of being hurt or injured or crippled. I know I am strong enough to handle most scary things that might come my way. But DO NOT ask me to dive in the water head first.

Death, plain and simple.

fear is the mind-killer.

Being alone in my old age...I want to be surrounded by family & friends.

Corporate globalization homogenizes the world into a bland culture
of consumption & death.

You can already see it as the west strives for faux-eastern mysticism, while the east tries to 'modernize' by becoming more concerned with shallow western economics-cum-ideals. Every airport across the globe is the same shopping mall, and colnel sanders has successfully invaded malayasia. We all know history is written by the winners, but who writes culture? In one or two generations, we'll easily come to see that "you can't go home again" applies not just to individuals but to a people as well.

Slowly, ignorantly, committing emotional suicide by accepting or refusing the wrong compromises over time, and not noticing that I've been systematically choking the life and joy out of my life; until one day I notice that everything is bleak to me and I have no idea what joy is or why other people seem happy.

topper - that's when we'll take you out for a sno-cone and some fried dough

going insane and dying alone w/ regrets

I have the bag-lady fear. Fear I'll wind up a bag lady. It's completely irrational, but oddly enough it's shared by several other women I know.

awwwwww!!!!

Being a bad parent. My husband and I both come from abusive households and are currently trying to conceive. I'm petrified that we will pass along the insecurities, guilt and anger that we received.

Totally screwing up my life beyond repair due to my own stupidity.

Gilly, I understand that feeling, but I just wanted to say: your life is never beyond repair.

anonymous..i'm currently battling that same fear...but it's good that we (you and i) realize that we were brought up that way...and we can concentrate on not cycling the anger...i've made a promise to myself to be absolutely understanding and considerate of my child's feelings...

I'm afraid someone will put a glass thermometer in my urethra then smash it with a hammer.

bill...I know someone who would do that for you....but it is very expensive!

hunter: I can think of quite a few situations in which someone's life is beyond repair.

Really? I've seen a number of real clunkers and many people who fail to repair bad lives, but I've never seen one I thought held no possibility of repair. Unless we're talking about terminal illness, which is a different kind of thing than I *think* Gilly's talking about.

Yeah, I'm talking about ending up sixty-seven and alone and stuck in an awful job and never owning a house and, and... well, you get the picture. And all through my lack of planning, or making the wrong decisions. And of course I know that life is never *really* beyond repair, but that doesn't make me less afraid of it. The scary part isn't so much the icky life bit, it's the my-own-fault bit.

life sucks...you struggle...trying to get things just the way you want them...and then you die...you spend your whole life repairing, or preparing would be better, to die

and for what?...to come back and do it all over again....

I am amazed at some people's delusions about the extent of their own control over their lives. Do you understand that by holding views such as "life is never really beyond repair" and "I've seen people who fail to repair bad lives, but I've never seen one that held the possibility of no repair," you implicitly absolve yourself of sympathy for those whose lives terminally suck, and turn away from any deeper understanding?? Look, just to give you one concrete example -- I work with some mentally ill clients for whom there is no hope that their lives will ever be anything other than miserable and a burden on society. I realize that this is not what you want to believe, but it's the truth. And all the false optimism in the world does not prevent it from being so. I am struggling to be nice here, because on some level I guess you *need* to believe that life is more sunny and more under your control than it is, but at the same time, this particular delusion really really really gets my goat.

Gilly, you can spend your entire life planning, and you can make all the right decisions, and still end up with a crappy life. You can totally fail to plan, and make some bad decisions, and end up with a good life.

elijahblue, I'm sorry for having pushed a button. Your defeatism will not help you or your patients, but I know how difficult it is to let it go and face disappointment again.

hunter: my "defeatism" is realism. Thank you for the one-liner about a profession and job situation you know nothing about, it's infinitely wise and helpful.

jen: I agree that the mind is a powerful thing. I don't agree that "choosing to participate in shaping experiences" can guarantee either a particular circumstantial outcome or happiness. We simply don't have as much control as most people seem to think. I also agree that it is not my job to strip away others' delusions. If they want to believe they have control, fine. However, it is also not THEIR job to try to convince other people of that, as with hunter's platitude that "your life is never beyond repair."

I also believe that our attitudes can make a big difference in whether we attract or repel what we desire in life. And I think we have as much control over our lives as we BELIEVE we have. It is my hope that all the optimistic people of the world will not give up their positive attitudes just because some people don't want to hear about it.

It's nonsensical to say you have as much control over your life as you think you have. I don't even think you believe that. And I think attitudes such as yours are degrading to people who suffer misfortune. You have a ready reason why someone has had bad things happen to them -- because they have "attracted" it. Therefore you don't have to feel sorry for them, nor do you have to feel worried about your own life because you believe it is under your control. You don't want to think about the possibility that at any moment misfortune could happen to you. Or perhaps you believe that no matter what happens to you you can still mentally control your reaction to it. I would challenge that belief and suggest that you have simply been lucky in what you've experienced. There is nothing wrong with having a positive attitude, but there is something wrong when you don't also acknowledge tragedy and chaos, two things that are not ruled by your optimism.

OK, elijahblue, you win. You have the bleakest worldview of us all and that makes you the ultimate realist. Life really is the joyless reality you depict, as opposed to the silly dreamworld us goofball optimists live in. I bow to your perspicacity.

There are people who suffer misfortune that I'm sure is totally beyond their control. The refugees from Kosovo come to mind, and I have a great deal of empathy for them. But people who just give up and don't try to turn their miserable lives around, and just want to complain constantly are the ones who get no sympathy from me.

Whoa! It pays to enrich your word power...I had to look that one up, hunter!

"The secret of life isn't in what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you."
--Norman Vincent Peale

Think about it...

I can only speak for myself when I say I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that I control MY life because I control how I react to life. It's not about dumb luck! Things happen to me and around me and I react a certain way. I have been doused with misfortune and plagued by problems and I have consciously chosen how I have responded. I have suffered. It would have been very easy at trying times to give up and give in and not care anymore.....but I didn't.

and you are right, I DON'T feel worried about my life. That is a GOOD thing! It is good NOT to worry. Worry is bad and useless to me. I feel sorry for some people who have suffered misfortune. I hope that they find the courage to not let misfortune defeat them. But I refuse to waste an ounce of sympathy on someone who uses misfortune as an excuse to GIVE UP! There is a BIG difference between acknowledging tragedy and chaos and wallowing in it.

Doing something I can't undo.

Dying of cancer. (painful death in general)
Falling off a bridge (especially in my car)
Injustice (like police brutality, think NYPD)
Not being unable to change my way of thinking

Hunh. Falling off a bridge in my car, or rather, *driving* off a bridge in my car, is one of my fantasies, especially when the bridge is across a really high gorge.

I fear that my stutter will get worse and I wont be able to talk... at least very well...but that's not my worst fear.

Excellent flamage with many grains of truth. Warning: Platititudes ahead! Apropos of ruining one's life, I always try to remind myself that it isn't "where I end up" that constitutes the measure of my life, but how I got there (admittedly this is very hard to keep sight of while I am living it!). Every day is a part of it, with whatever measure of events, accomplishments, luck (good or bad), chaos, growth, tragedy, or ecstasy it carries. Having been born into it, I can only live it as well as I can, because I surely won't survive it. Admittedly, I have been extremely fortunate in my path so far. Still, my greatest hope for my life is that when I reach the end of it, I'll be able to look back and like what it has become.

Welcome back Eeah!

hunter, I'm sorry I've fallen behind with SC of late. You deserve a green globule for "perspicacity" (and perhaps a cyan sickle as well), but I'm too late now.

dentists

festering anal sores

Depression..and the fear it will come back again and that this time I would succeed in killing myself.