Cities
Chicago especially
Public speaking. I’ve seen surveys where more people are afraid of speaking in front of an audience than they are of dying, which is utterly insane. For the vast, vast majority of scenarios where you might find yourself speaking to a group of people, the risk level is very low. Likewise, in the vast majority of cases, few people are likely to remember much about your performance. It’s just talking.
Asking someone out on a date.
I had social anxiety for years, so I probably struggled with this more than most. But it’s surprisingly easy. And more often than not, if your instincts are that that person likes you, you’re usually right.
Universal healthcare. So scary only 33 of the world’s 34 most modernized countries have managed to make it work.
Linux. It’s more the same than different and everyone learns fast :)
It seems scary at first, but if you just let go of the things you learned with Windows, you’ll see it’s a lot better. It just takes some getting used to, and it can be frustrating at first if you don’t fully understand. You may be tempted to find an alternative, but this is not always the way. Just accepting that it’s different is a good first step
Do the commands CTRL+C, CTRL+X, CTRL+Z, and CTRL+V work the same?
If so, I’m in.
Yeah, in most places. Welcome aboard :)
Absolutely they do!
Traveling to a foreign country.
I haven’t done as much as a millionaire traveler but I have touched 30 countries and directly explored about 20 of them. I got to see wealthy first world Europe, as well as Morocco, Egypt, South America in Peru and a whole bunch of southeast Asia and India and Sri Lanka. Not to mention road trips in Canada and parts of the US west coast and east coast.
I got to see a lot of dirt poor slums and really rough places.
I don’t drink nor do I do drugs because I’m in recovery myself (30 years sober) … and what I discovered is that once you remove any and all illegal behavior, drugs and alcohol, the majority of people everywhere in the world are decent people like you and me who are just trying to get by. Sure they want your money and some people are desperate but touristic places usually attract seedy people anyway. Regular common people away from tourist places are just getting by and they really don’t care who you are.
This is all within the realm of being realistic too … you don’t go wandering down a lonely alleyway on your own or go into a dark sleazy noisy bar. I’m just saying that as long as you are safe and others are safe, people the world over are no different than you and me.
Australian animals.
Americans are the absolute worst at it and it’s just so stupid. Yes we have poisonous snakes and spiders, so does America.
We have more of them than America, yes.
You know what we don’t have? Large predators. You can go walking in the bush in Australia and you might see one of the most dangerous snakes in the world. You know what you do? You don’t fuck with it and continue on with your business.
You’re walking in America and oh, you’ve just stumbled across one of the multiple species of bears, coyotes, wolves, cougars etc. Animals that may chase you down and maul you. It’s not even a competition.
And you, as an American, might say ‘oh but you pretty much never see them’. Yeah same with dangerous snakes etc in Australia.
America doesn’t have Gympie Gympie trees.
That is true, again, very specific area, I’ve never seen one in near 4 decades.
100%, I’m much more afraid of aggressive roos or feral animals than snakes or spiders.
You know what we don’t have? Large predators
Crocodiles are pretty large, and so are great white sharks.
You know what’s funny though? I just finished writing about how bears aren’t scary, and then I came across your post saying American predators are more scary than Australian ones. Haha. I suppose it’s all a matter of familiarity.
Crocodiles are very large, but again, they are mostly in a pretty unpopulated region and again, they do not chase and attack, you just don’t go swimming.
Sharks are not Australian. For many years I’ve also had Americans and Japanese alike saying ‘oh Australia has so many sharks!’. It’s the ocean, there are sharks everywhere.
It is all about familiarity, but with a snake it’s literally ‘don’t touch it’. With a bear, you have to know which bear it is, best defence, carry a weapon etc. Not comparable.
Yeah, crocodiles and alligators seem pretty easy to avoid, as long as you don’t have to get into the water.
Most bears just run away long before people see them. I’ve spent half my life in the backcountry and high country, and I’ve only seen a bear 3 times in the wild, each time it was running away. Okay, 4 times if you count Yosemite, which I don’t since those are basically domesticated bears. To be clear, I’m not arguing with you, just giving you more details on the predators we have here. They’re more afraid of us than we are of them. I do carry bear spray in bear country though these days, just in case.
I’ve never seen a cougar. They won’t be seen if they don’t want to be seen.
Snakes are pretty much the same thing like you said, just leave it alone, but they’re a lot less likely to run away. The real danger with snakes is startling one when scrambling over rocks. They’ll just bite you out of self defense and then you’re in for a real bad time. I’ve only ever happened across rattlesnakes 3 times though. They’re very reclusive creatures. We killed the snake two out of the three times though, because both of those times the snake had set up shop on a path we frequently walked, and we couldn’t risk startling it one day without seeing it, and ending up dead, or losing a limb, or whatever.
Spiders are the worst, because they’ll crawl inside your shoes, gloves, sleeping bags, pants, or whatever, and bite you when you don’t even know they’re there. Thankfully we only have a few very dangerous spiders, and one of them is a web spider, so very easy to avoid.
For sure, I understand and agree with you. It’s the same everywhere, most animals, even those that can easily kill you, want nothing to do with you.
I was just saying, the notion that Australia is some crazy dangerous land infested with animals trying to kill you is just nonsense.
Random story, I went to the US about 10 years ago and was in LA, driving around the mountains, just enjoying the area. I came up around a bend and saw a baby mountain lion running across the road and up a hill. I was so fucking excited, I hit the brakes, pulled over, got out of the car, took about 4-5 steps towards where it ran off and suddenly had the thought ‘fuck… Mum will be very close’. Got back in my car and left.
Anyway, I drove through about 2000 miles of the US, that was the only ‘dangerous’ animal encounter.
Wow! What a special treat! I’ve seen a bobcat in the wild, but never a cougar. I’m pretty okay with not seeing them though, since they’re usually planning on killing you if they let themselves be seen. Still, it would be neat to actually see one and walk away unscathed.
I saw a wolf once. It was just sitting in the middle of the road. We got a good look at it as we drove past and it’s so very obvious that they are not dogs. The eyes held so much danger and wildness in them. It was very cool.
Skydiving
Yes, the first few times are intimidating. Hence why most students do their first few jumps tandem and then with a Jump Master after that.
After that though, you’ll be looking out the window of the plane and seeing just how much air there is to play in. As you gain experience, you will internalize the fact you’re safer in free fall, than you are on the airplane.
It’s not the free fall that I’m worried about. It’s what comes after.
Main deployment isn’t that bad. I have been whacked a time or two by my main parachute, but it was my fault for having bad body position at deployment time.
Root canals. The procedure has come a long way since the 90s and is relatively smooth and painless now. Obviously having a good and skillful edodontist also helps, but it’s no longer excruciating like decades ago.
Yeah if anything it’s about taking the pain away.
Currently having to deal with finding an endodontist that does retreats, so finding a good one in the first place is the pain.
The procedure itself is whatever.
But I am on Xanax when they do they, otherwise I’m not allowed inside a dentist office.
Minorities.
Needles.
I think mine is animalistic fear of damaging yourself. I’m fine, I sit down and act nonchalant. I’ll talk and look at the person or them doing it. But, under that is my skin getting clammy and breaking out in a light sweat…
Totally normal reaction, I mean it isn’t normal to let someone else put metal inside your own body, I get that little sweat too sometimes when the needle goes in. But I wouldn’t say scary.
Spiders.
They’re such amazing creatures.
I know, still hate them
Hang Gliding! It’s really chill. So many students are on edge when they’re about to do their first flight, but I always hear happy sounds as they fly off and they’re in a great mood when they finally land.
hunger.
I don’t mean starvation I mean there are people that cannot sit with a slight uncomfortable feeling of hunger. If you have eaten enough to fuel your body in a healthy way then being slightly hungry will not harm you.
I often operate with forgetting to eat.
Some people don’t understand how ’forgetting’ to eat happens. Getting so wrapped up into the subject you’re in that you can just put off whatever that hunger feeling is to a bit later. Although maybe I am just not that uncomfortable I guess. I’ll eat when my brain starts to feel hungry over the gut feel. But this comes with a caveat. You can have a crash and I do not recommend this.
making phone calls (yes this is calling myself out too)
