Fearless

My junior year in college I learned that fear is not the wisest response to danger. The lesson began with an obscene phone call from a young man who called me by name. At first I was so surprised it took me a minute to hang up. A week later he called again. He said he had been watching me and knew I had cut my hair. “I’m going to rape you,” he concluded. I gasped and slammed down the phone.

This time I was afraid. Not only was he right about my hair cut, twice in a row he had caught me alone in my room, making me wonder if he was watching to see when my roommate was out. My dorm was surrounded by fraternities, so he could have been nearby. I started glancing over my shoulder at night and pulling the shades.

Then I heard that a young woman down the hall from me was getting the same kind of calls, so I went to hear her story. Helen was holding forth in her dorm room, telling a small audience about his daily, violence threats. She demonstrated how she dropped the phone and screamed every time he called. Suddenly I realized this was exactly what he wanted—our fear and the sense of power it gave him. That’s why he called Helen more often than he called me. Her screams made her more fun.

The next time he called, he began with the rape threat, but I was not afraid. “I’m concerned about your mental health,” I said calmly. There was silence on the other end. “You must be very sad or disturbed to be making calls like this. Did you know the university offers a free counseling service?” There was still no response, so I gave simple directions to the counseling office on the other side of campus. “I hope they can help you,” I concluded. This time, he hung up and never called back. I heard he stopped calling Helen, too.

I don’t know how my fearless response to the young man’s threats affected him, but it taught me several valuable lessons. First, I learned that fear can get in the way of seeing clearly. When we are afraid of people, we often ascribe them more power than they actually have, which can amplify our fear out of all proportion to the real threat. Second, I learned that I control my own attitude, no matter what someone else is doing. In other words, no one can make me scream (something I need to remember when my son starts climbing on parked cars). Third, I learned that controlling my response is a much better way of affecting someone else than trying to control them. Without realizing it at the time, I won by refusing to play his game.

Learning to be fearless isn’t always easy, so it is good to hear each other’s stories. That’s why I was happy to hear that my friends Miriam Peskowitz and Andi Buchanan over at MotherTalk are featuring a blogging event called “Fearless Friday.” They are spreading the word on the paperback release of Arianna Huffington's Becoming Fearless, a book about women overcoming the fears that can limit us. So today I am joining other bloggers across the country by writing about this theme. If you want to join the fun, visit MotherTalk for details (Non-mothers welcome!).