Fear is a multi-faceted emotion. Being afraid of something that threatens your safety or livelihood is just one vein of fear. Sometimes those sources of anxiety are irrational, as Daniel Gardner argues in his book The Science of Fear. There is also the fear of failure, which I wrote about earlier this week. Here, too, …
Perfectionism (aka the fear of failure)
I’ve always been a perfectionist. Some of my perfectionistic qualities when I was younger were probably indicators of some mild obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I’ve gotten better, but my desire for perfection is still alive and well. I remember doing an assignment in first grade, and when we graded our own work, I got one wrong. I …
Between Two Poles 