Every now and then, I will hear a comment and I will immediately internalize it. “Fear can drive the decision making process.” My initial response was “of course it does!” but just by changing one little word in my response from “does” to “can” completely re-frames this statement from an “absolute certainty” to “one option out of many”. If I were to be confronted by someone brandishing a weapon who had the intention of robbing me, fear could be a factor in my decision making process. The same can be said if I were to simply lose my wallet and my phone while traveling, its logical that fear could become a factor in my decision making process. The list of scenarios could go on and on, but I think that you get the point. Fear can drive the decision making process; but does it have to? Is it the only factor that drives the decision making process? Can multiple divergent emotions simultaneous drive the decision making process? Consider the highly trained Special Forces military professional that has been told that he is part of a team whose mission it is to neutralize a well-protected terrorist. Is he fearful to the point that it drives his decision making process? Or what about the firefighter that has to enter a building to rescue a family and their pet cat? Are his actions driven by fear? It would be incomprehensible to believe that either of these people, in these circumstances, have been able to eliminate every inclining of fear. Could it be that all people, not just some, are capable of choosing to let some other emotion or characteristic, like valor, self-sacrifice or duty to others, trump fear? It is possible that everyone has the capability to work through fear by accessing their training, or an innate desire to help someone in need, or something else deep inside themselves? The severity of the challenge doesn’t change, the danger to ourselves is not diminished, yet we find a way to control the only thing that can be controlled; the internal emotional response, fear, to an outward threat.
When I was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s, the initial emotion that I experienced was fear, fear of the unknown and fear of rejection to be more specific. I wanted to be able to look into a crystal ball and see the future. I wanted to know right then how this disease was going to impact my family and me. I wanted to know how long I could expect to be able to perform Activities of Daily Living, or ADL’s. I still don’t know and some days I think that I need to. I will never know what is in store until it happens; then I will know. In a sense, I learned to live with the fear but will no longer allow myself to be consumed by it. It’s like found a way to contain it like one would contain a swarm of bees. I know they are there, and they can hurt me if I let them out, so I don’t. During the earlier part of my career while self-employed, I learned that I could thrive in an ambiguous environment. I didn’t need to know where my next check was coming from, yet I found a way to function. Living with PD is no different. Symptoms come out of nowhere; one day it might be slowness (bradykinesia), or maybe another sleepless night, or the most annoying symptom, uncontrollable leg movements (dyskinesia). The term that can best describe the progression of the physiological changes is that they are “non-linear.” I have to live with a variety of symptoms every day; a common trait that many sufferers of PD experience. There are good days and there are bad days. I can take my meds at the same time day after day, I can do the same exercises at the same time each day but not experience the same benefits. Like I said, sometimes they come out of nowhere. Am I concerned that every sensation that I never before experienced is the start of a new phase in the progression of my disease? Of course I am! But when that happens, I feel discouragement more than fear. I don’t have the luxury of curling up in a fetal position, pulling a blanket over my head, and checking out until a cure is found. It doesn’t work that way. Life is still going to happen; I didn’t get a “pass” because I have PD. My truck will still break down because its 10-years old, I still encounter more demands on my financial resources that I would like, my lawn still needs to be mowed; life is still moving on and it doesn’t really care that I have this physical constraint that I have to drag along with me.
There are some things that I can no longer do, such as climbing ladders, there are some things that I probably shouldn’t do but still do, like climbing ladders, but there are a lot of things that I can still do where my PD is just a mild inconvenience. Typing for example; I have to hit the back-space more than I like, which may be linked to my PD or it may just be that I am lousy at keyboarding. I remember one of the first times that I was able to overcome the fear associated with my disability. There, I finally admitted it; I have a disability. Back to my point, it was shortly after I was originally diagnosed, some friends of mine asked me to go on a bicycle ride with them. My initial response was that I can’t because of my PD, in reality my unspoken reply was, “I would love to, but I am afraid (fear) that I will not be able to keep pace or that I will get tired and have a difficult time getting back.” I was assured that the ride was manageable and that if I needed a rest along the way, we could find a bar and have a beer or two. At that point, I was all in. I dusted off my 20-year old mountain bike, put air in the tires and I went with them; we made it back unscathed. I was hooked; on biking, not beer. I soon made biking part of my regular exercise routine. It still is. I typically ride alone with a goal of 10-20 mile rides. I have no doubt that I will be able to make it back. The ride might be a bit slower than I would like, but I will make it back. I always take my meds with me, I find an emergency contact person, and off I go. It took a long time for my wife to get comfortable with my new hobby. The more I would ride, the more endurance I could build up, the longer I would be gone. Little did I realize that she was experiencing her own kind of fear, “Will he be okay? How long do I wait before I go out looking for him or call the police? If he doesn’t make it back, how long should I wait before I change my Facebook status?” I found an app that I installed on my smart phone where I could map my rides using the GPS called Map My Ride; clever name! I installed it on my tablet as well and told her that she could see where I was riding and that if the dot stopped moving that’s where I could be found. I didn’t realize that the free version of the app didn’t have real-time tracking and I needed to buy the premium version of the app to get that feature; an investment that I am sure to make at the beginning of this season. This hobby gave the much needed confidence to look beyond my PD and envision success in other areas of my life.
I am just now coming to an understanding of how to work through the disease, push back the fear, and strive for an ordinary, even extraordinary life. That is my goal after all, to live a life that is extraordinary in spite of my PD. I refuse to let fear stand in my way. I don’t know when, exactly, my outlook changed but what I do know is that it was intentional. I made a decision that I could no longer live the kind of life that I wanted with the baggage that I was carrying around. Today, with perfect timing, this drive toward living with intentionality was validated when I opened the cover of a book that I picked up this week entitled Living Forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkevy. The first sentence of the introduction was a quote by J.P. Morgan that made me stop, “The first step toward getting somewhere is to decide that you’re not going to stay where you are.” That is where I am, I decided a while back that I am not going to stay where I am. Now I know that I am not alone.
Thank you for joining me on my journey. I fully expect it to be extraordinary.