When Did We Become So Afraid?

I am the president of Cardiff University’s Kayaking club. And I can’t kayak.

Of course I’m being hyperbolic, I can kayak – in the sense that most able-bodied people are able to paddle if they’ve never done it before. It is a simple action. You put one blade of the paddle into the water and pull it towards you before doing the same on the opposite side, causing the boat to move along the river.

That’s it really. There is a difference between being able to do something and knowing how to do it. Between keeping yourself afloat and being able to roll, between getting from A to B and actually being able to read the river.

The only way to bridge that gap is to practice. To be bad at something before you can be good at it. And ultimately to accept that you will, at some point, look silly doing it. And yet, we seem increasingly reluctant to do just that.

We talk about protecting our peace, establishing boundaries, conserving our energy, and refusing to entertain anything that doesn’t serve us. Much of this is necessary. Learning to recognise our own limits and remove ourselves from situations which make us unhappy is a key part of growing up and knowing yourself.

But somewhere along the way, I wonder whether we have become so preoccupied with protecting ourselves from discomfort that we have forgotten what discomfort can do for us. There is always a reason not to go.

To not attend that society GIAG where you don’t know anyone and are unfamiliar with the activity, not to strike up a conversation with a stranger in your seminar, not to apply for a position you might not get. We tell ourselves that we aren’t particularly interested, that we would rather stay at home, that we know what we like.

Sometimes, this is true. But sometimes what we call ‘knowing ourselves’ is simply a refusal to find out who else we might be. The problem is not that we have too many boundaries, but that we have become reluctant to question the ones we have imposed on ourselves.

At University, we are constantly surrounded by opportunities to try things that are new, meet people we would never ordinarily encounter, and discover interests that may have otherwise remained entirely foreign to us.

There are societies for almost everything, modules on subjects we know absolutely nothing about, and people whose experiences of the world may challenge everything we take for granted.

After all, there is a particular vulnerability in being bad at something. To be a beginner is to surrender the illusion of competence and admit that there is something we don’t know. It risks embarrassment, rejection, and failure. It means you must accept that you cannot control how a situation will turn out, only whether you are willing to have it.

We cannot become more capable without first being incapable. We cannot broaden our understanding of the world without encountering ideas that challenge it. And we cannot meaningfully discover ourselves if we shut off any opportunities to find out that we were wrong about ourselves in the first place.

None of this is to suggest that we should abandon our boundaries or deliberately make ourselves miserable. The discomfort of trying something new should be thoroughly distinguished from the distress of remaining in a situation that is harmful. The former can be productive, and the latter is not something that should be romanticised.

Not every invitation has to be accepted, nor every opportunity seized. Sometimes saying no is what we need. But, it is always worth asking ourselves, occasionally, whether we are refusing because we genuinely don’t want to do something or because we are afraid of what might happen if we do.