This ice-cold fear's on me

MANILA, Philippines - There are over 530 known phobias. When you are in your twenties, you’ve probably self-diagnosed yourself with about half of them, of which maybe less than a handful are legitimate. But there are some fears that the world doesn’t even have words for yet. There are nameless fears that keep you up at night, crippling and paralyzing you into a puddle of inaction, brimming with both panic and worry.

I have been exposed to most of these fears. Turning 22 was, in itself, scary, as it meant that I had plunged into a pool called adulthood, around the edges of which I had previously just been toeing around and occasionally dipping my feet into. Turning 22, getting a job and paying my taxes marked, for me, the point of no return.

Everyday People Talk Everyday Scary Things

• “Not doing something I actually care about.” — Mikka, 22, commercial developer

• “Being left behind.” — Zoe, 23, art manager, Hong Kong

Mikka, 22: “Fear is not doing something I care about .”

• “Getting stuck and settling.” — Nikki I., 22, and Isa, 22, writers

• “This irrational and illogical fear of shining.” — Abi, 23

• “Not matching parents‘ success.”— Anne, 22, student

• “Having no long-term plan.” — Zet, 20, newly unemployed semi-adult

• “I might end up being a big fat bore.” — Arianne, 20, travel writer wannabe

• “Getting lost.” — Nikki P., 21, student

• “Money scares me. Consumerism scares me.” — Petra, 21, student

• “I worry about everything.” — Rob, 20, student

Eighteen of the twenty-somethings I’ve tapped shared with me the things that they had feared the most about where they are right now. What I’ve found, summed up quite neatly, is that we are afraid of mostly the same things.

Martin, 22, states it plainly: “It all boils down to failure.” Armed with tons of short-term goals, he is afraid of turning 25 and “being directionless and powerless to change it.” Zoe constantly feels the pressure to excel with no option of slowing down — not uncommon in such a competitive field like hers. “One struggle... is maintaining the momentum and steadily advancing to where I want to be,” she says. Anne, conversely, is afraid of being overworked to the point where time for friends and building a family will disappear behind her career, leading to a stable but otherwise lonely life.

Other pressures also find a way to fit into the already confusing equation. Zet says, “I feel like I have to make elaborate plans in order to attain the kind of success that my parents expect from me.” What Arianne is scared of is responsibility. “Supporting myself sounds tedious,” she shares.

Most are afraid of settling into a kind of comfort that compromises whatever dreams they have had been holding onto. “I’m afraid that I’ll forget that I told myself that I have to follow my dreams no matter what,” says Nikki I. Abi is “terrified of losing my sense of adventure and disliking who I am X years from now because I got stuck doing an aging, joyless job.”

Living out this point in your life lends a certain feeling of in-betweenness, where it’s hard to figure out exactly where you fit into the grand scheme of things. There’s a lot of testing a lot of waters, and the tiring routine of trying on shoes that don’t fit as well as you thought they would. “Leaving college and breaking out into adulthood feels to me like floating,” Paulina, a creative director at 21, says. “Like an astronaut disconnected from his spaceship, lost in space, which is both terribly exciting and terribly scary.”

“I hate feeling like a newbie at life again,” Bia, 22, says. “After proving myself to countless people in high school and in college, now all of that doesn’t matter.”

Mikka, 22: “Zet, 20: “Fear is having no long term plan.”

Marvin is 22 and has recently landed a job in California as a part-time specialist for Apple, which he feels might be a turning point. “Right now my life’s kind of empty,” he shares, and proceeds to list the reasons why: “I haven’t been writing new material, my band is on an indefinite hiatus, I have no money, and I have a limited social network. I’ve been winging it through books and TV shows.” He has also effectively illustrated the stagnation twenty-somethings have been struggling with, as well as a semi-effective means of coping.

It seems, however, that most of this unease comes from the collective desire to prove something to the world. “None of us really know where we want to go,” says Camille, 22. “Or we want to be so many things that it becomes difficult to start being any of those things, so we end up (fulfilling) none of those ambitions at all.” Sasha, a technical consultant, lists among her fears: “That moment when you wake up, but you refuse to open your eyes, because you’re certain that the day is perched on my bedside table, just waiting to swoop.” Also: “Dementors.”

The world is rife with so many possibilities, and everyone is scrambling to get the most out of them, but at the same time, looking to do things that will matter. Petra says, “I’m not scared of dying but I’m scared of dying without having accomplished anything.”

Marvin, 22: “Right now , my life’s kinda empty.”

Nash, 22, is working towards a master’s degree. He says, “The thing is, it never stops being scary and the fear can genuinely paralyze you, if you let it.” Adds Isa: “I want to always be passionate. I would never want to compromise a life I love because of fear.” Of course, there are those who have elected to not over-think things. Rob is adamant in doing just that. “Excuse me, while I splurge my allowance on old toys trying to retain some childishness inside me.”

“I am afraid of not knowing what will make me happy,” says Camille. It seems, after all, that it boils down to a deceptively simple want: to be happy. She adds, thoughtful and with finality, “I guess that’s all there is, really.”