Fear of Man

Yuta Sakamoto was exhausted from selling home-improvement projects, including the boss’s demand that he help clean up at renovation sites on weekends. One day, he mustered his courage and announced he wanted to quit. But his boss warned him he would be ruining his future, and Sakamoto shrank back.

Then a friend proposed a solution. Sakamoto didn’t have to confront the boss again—he could hire someone to do it for him. After sending $200 and his case details to a quitting agency, he was finally a free man.

“I would have been mentally broken if I had continued,” says 24-year-old Sakamoto, who found a new job as a salesman at a printing firm.

A labor shortage in Japan means underpaid or overworked employees have other options nowadays. The problem: this famously polite country has a lot of people who hate confrontation. Some worry they’ll cause a disruption by leaving, or they dread the idea of co-workers gossiping about what just transpired in the boss’s office.

Enter a company called Exit. Toshiyuki Niino co-founded it to help people quit after experiencing his own difficulties in leaving jobs. “Americans may be surprised, but I was too shy or too scared to say what I think,” says Niino, 34. “Japanese are not educated to debate and express opinions.” Exit now handles more than 10,000 cases a year in which its staff quits on behalf of clients.

Possible Preaching Angles:

There are several approaches you might take with this story: 1) Fear and Courage – Learning how to overcome fear with faith and courage (2 Tim. 1:7); 2) Work Ethic – Finding a career that fits with our skills and well-being (Col. 3:23); Wisdom and Guidance – Sakamoto’s friend suggesting the use of a quitting agency illustrates seeking counsel from others when making decisions (Prov. 11:14).

In a recent article in The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman describes how to be liberated from people-pleasing:

“Great news! I found the cure for my anxiety!!” the author Sarah Gailey once announced on social media. “All I need is for everyone I know to tell me definitively that they aren’t mad at me, once every 15 seconds, forever.”

I know how she feels. For years, I possessed a remarkable superpower: I could turn almost any work opportunity that came my way into an unpleasant emotional drama, simply by agreeing to do it.

Once I’d accepted a deadline or signed a contract, there was now another person in the world who might be growing impatient that I hadn’t finished yet, or who might end up disappointed in what I produced. And the thought that they might be harboring any negativity towards me felt hugely oppressive. This same overinvestment in other people’s emotions meant I was always saying yes to things I should really have declined, because I flinched internally at the thought of the other person feeling crestfallen.

It bears emphasizing that the people you’re worried might be angry with you, disappointed in you, or bored by you almost never actually are. The liberating truth is that they’ve got their own troubles to worry about…. As the novelist Leila Sales observes, poking fun at this tendency in herself: “It’s weird how when I don’t respond to someone’s email, it’s because I’m busy, but when other people don’t respond to my emails, it’s because they hate me.”

The liberating truth about life as a finite human is that…you’re never going to please everyone, or do everything, or accomplish anything perfectly. So, what would you like to do with your life instead?

When talking about the harms of social media today, one of the first problems people mention is FOMO—fear of missing out. Scroll through Instagram and see your friends having fun at a party you weren’t invited to. Check Snapchat to find everyone’s Bitmojis together on Snap Map without you. This feeling of constantly missing out, we’re told, is a major cause of anxiety and depression for Gen Z.

But that’s not true anymore. More often, it’s the opposite. We want to avoid the risk, the rejection, the awkwardness, the effort, and energy that the real world demands. Our major problem isn’t fear of missing out. It’s fear of taking part.

Look at how many young people are scared of doing everyday things. Not just fear of learning to drive, or getting a job—but scared to order in restaurants. Can’t walk into a cafe. Don’t want to open their door for a delivery. Under the hashtag #socialanxiety on TikTok, which has nearly 3 billion views, young people are sharing symptoms, describing debilitating anxiety, even recording their panic attacks in public.

One British TikToker hosts a series called “Doing Things You’re Afraid of To Show You It’s Okay.” In the series, she films herself facing challenges like getting in an elevator, asking for help in a supermarket, and asking for directions. It’s great to see someone working on their anxiety — but what’s alarming is how popular these videos are, and how many users say they have the same fears. Meanwhile forums like r/socialanxiety on Reddit–which has over 400,000 members–are filled with teenagers and young adults admitting that they are afraid of the real world. They feel much more comfortable online.

Many young people even fear making phone calls, and avoid it as much as possible. One study from last year found that 90% of Gen Z say they have “phone anxiety,” writing down scripts before they speak.

Across social media, there’s also a growing celebration of missing out. The phrase “JOMO” (Joy of Missing Out) is catching on, along with TikToks, tweets, and memes about the relief of cancelled plans. They say this is about wellness and self-care but that just sounds nicer than self-isolation. Missing out is good for our mental health, we tell ourselves. We’re better off inside.

Gen Z is the first generation who had a phone-based childhood, who spent their formative years in a pandemic, who have had less face-to-face interaction than any other in history. The only world they’ve ever known is one where they can get everything they need without interacting with another human: self-service checkouts, delivery apps, online porn, online lectures, and online communities.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The only thing scarier than the real world is never being brave enough to enter it. The life to be afraid of is the one unlived. Learn to trust God and live life. Discover the gifts and abilities that God has given to you. Get up. Get out. Give it all you’ve got. Fear missing out again. And then refuse to do it any longer.

A surefire way to never get hurt: Imagine a life free from heartache and disappointment, a world where you are impervious to the pain that comes with emotional vulnerability. Picture yourself gliding through your days without the sting of rejection or the ache of unfulfilled dreams. Sounds perfect, doesn't it?

After all, you've learned from an early age that vulnerability can lead to pain. A harsh word from a friend, an unreciprocated crush, a family argument, each instance teaches you to guard your heart. This foundational fear shapes your approach to relationships and life. You begin to understand that vulnerability is a double-edged sword, capable of bringing both joy and sorrow. Your instinct to protect yourself becomes the cornerstone of your emotional defenses.

As you grow older, you start constructing your fortress brick by brick. First, you hold back your feelings, and you certainly don't let anyone see your weaknesses. This way, you prevent others from having the power to hurt you. Next, you refrain from sharing your opinions. By keeping your thoughts to yourself, especially on controversial topics, you steer clear of potential conflicts and judgment. You begin to distance yourself from people and avoid deep connections that could lead to betrayal.

This isolation does protect you from immediate pain, but it slowly starts to build a barrier between you and the world. At this point, your defenses are at their peak. You've perfected the art of non-participation, and your emotional fortress is impenetrable.

You've built walls around your heart so high, that you've effectively isolated yourself. The fear of getting hurt has led you to a place where you're no longer living, but merely existing. Your fortress, meant to protect you, has now become a prison. As you reflect on your life within these walls, the consequences of your choices become painfully clear. You've successfully avoided heartbreak, but you've also missed out on love.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Choosing to be vulnerable in our interpersonal relationships requires true faith and humility. No one likes to get hurt and everyone wants to feel safe at all times. The consequences of building an emotional fortress around ourselves are very serious.

An article in The Financial Times claims that “the west is suffering from a crisis of courage.” The author notes:

And the problem is much broader than politics. Society itself seems to be suffering from a crisis of courage … Virtue signaling might be endemic, but courage, like honor, is not deemed a virtue worth signaling. Indeed, all the incentives are stacked on the opposite side: there is little to lose from going along with what everyone is saying, even if you don’t believe it yourself, and much to gain from proving that you are on the “right” side. Courage — sticking your head above the parapet and saying what you really think — can, conversely, get you into a huge amount of trouble, and, usually, you are not rewarded for it.

The mere mention of courage has been in decline for a long time. A 2012 paper in the Journal of Positive Psychology that tracked how frequently words related to moral excellence appeared in American books — both fiction and non-fiction — over the 20th century, found that the use of the words “courage, bravery and fortitude” (which were grouped together) had fallen by two-thirds over the period.

Moral courage does not equate to recklessness, and neither does it mean being a provocateur for the sake of it … But if we want our societies to thrive, we must be courageous enough to think for ourselves and stand up for what we believe in. The late writer Maya Angelou was right when she said: “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”

Wall Street Journal writer Joseph Epstein notes that the opinion poll has been around for more than a century. They gained authority in the 1940s with the polling methods of George Gallup. Now we put way too much stock in opinion polls. Epstein writes, “So endemic is polling that it feels as if what a politician does is less important than whether the public approves or disapproves.”

President Abraham Lincoln is an example of how to seek wise counsel and input from others without letting it run your life. Epstein writes:

Early in his presidency he set aside morning office hours to receive visitors, many seeking favors or attempting to exert influence, or merely wishing to shake the hand of the nation’s leader. … These visits … offered the president the opportunity, in these days before scientific public opinion polling, to get some idea of how ordinary people felt about him and his administration. Yet Lincoln, aware as he was of public sentiment, never allowed it ultimately to alter his policies or principles, which is one of the reasons he was a great man.

For instance, some critics blasted his 272-word Gettysburg Address for being too short. But Lincoln stood by the speech, and as we all know now, it became one of the greatest political speeches of all time.

Demi Lovato and the Australian singer/songwriter Sam Fisher recently collaborated on a piece titled “What Other People Say” that reveals this generation's realization that living for the affirmation of others cannot fill the void in our heart.

Some of the lyrics from the radio edit of the song:

Thought when I grew up

I would be the same as the ones who gave me my last name

I would not give in, I would not partake

In the same old drugs everyone else takes

I'm better than that, I'm better than that

I'm living my life so I go to heaven and never come back

But look where I'm at, look where I'm at

I'm living the life that I said I wouldn't, I wanna go back

I used to call my mom every Sunday

So she knew her love wasn't far away

But now I'm all messed up out in LA

'Cause I care more about what other people say

I used to not take chances with God's name

But it's been so long since I last prayed

And now I'm all messed up and my heart's changed

'Cause I care more about what other people say

The song so resonated with Lovato she shared, "When I first heard this song, I cried. These lyrics resonate so much with me and are super meaningful. This song is a reflection on what it's like to lose who you truly are in an effort to please other people and society."

Fischer added, "'What Other People Say' is a confession, realizing how far away you can get from who you are in an effort to be liked. It’s about the pressures of society and how getting caught up with the wrong things can change you."

During the hardest moments of a particularly difficult year, Bible searches soared online, and a record number of people turned to Scripture for passages addressing fear, healing, and justice. The popular YouVersion Bible App saw searches increase by 80 percent in 2020, totaling nearly 600 million worldwide.

Isaiah’s assurance to “do not fear,” was the Bible App’s top verse globally this year, also ranked as the No. 1 verse in the US, India, South Africa, the Netherlands, and the Philippines. In Ghana, the top verse was Philippians 4:8 (“Do not be anxious …”), and in Kenya, Romans 8:28 (“in all things, God works for the good …”).

YouVersion founder Bobby Gruenewald said, “Through every hardship, people continue to seek God and turn to the Bible for strength, peace, and hope. While 2020 is a year so many say they’d like to forget, we see it as a year to remember how God used the Bible App to help so many people who are searching for answers.”

Overall, the app tracked 43.6 billion chapters of the Bible read in 2020, with half a billion verses shared, its highest on record.

Lord Kenneth Clark, internationally known for his television series Civilization, lived and died without faith in Jesus Christ. He admitted in his autobiography that while visiting a beautiful church he had what he believed to be an overwhelming religious experience. He wrote, “My whole being was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy far more intense than anything I had known before."

But the "flood of grace" as he described it, created a problem. If he allowed himself to be influenced by it, he knew he would have to change, his family might think he had lost his mind, and maybe that intense joy would prove to be an illusion. So, he concluded, "I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course."

Some people know that the musicians, Taylor Swift and Kanye West, had a very public falling out in 2016. What people didn't know until recently was why the incident affected Taylor so much that she hid from the public eye. The Washington Post reports what she said in a Netflix documentary: "When people decided that I was wicked and evil and conniving and not a good person, that was the one I couldn't really bounce back from, because my whole life was centered around it."

She even describes getting into the music business for the very same reason: "We're people who got into this line of work because we wanted people to like us, because we were intrinsically insecure, because we liked the sound of people clapping, because it made us forget how much we feel like we're not good enough."

Possible Preaching Angle:

It might seem that legalism is dead and gone in this "live and let live" world, but experiences like this tell us that legalism is still very much alive. Many, like Taylor, experience a relentless drive to prove themselves “good enough” to those around them.

When 82-year-old Willie Murphy heard the sound of an intruder breaking into her home, she felt bad. Bad for the intruder, that is. Murphy said to reporters, “He picked the wrong house to break into.”

That’s because Murphy was already a critically acclaimed bodybuilder, having won the World Natural Powerlifting Upstate New York Championship in 2018. After calling police, Murphy used the darkness to lie in wait for the assailant. Then when the moment was right, she struck with all the strength and agility she could muster. Murphy said, “I picked up the table and I went to work on him.” After breaking the table, Murphy briefly poured a bottle of shampoo on his face before continuing to whale on him with a broom handle.

The police who responded were so impressed, said Murphy, that they “wanted to go on my front porch and take selfies with me … I really did a number on that man.”

Potential Preaching Angles: 1) God can sustain us in tough times if we endure and do not lose heart. We don’t have to live in fear, but in distress we can turn to the gifts that God has given us. 2) We have the power to defeat Satan’s attacks through the strength of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Conventional story says that journalists should avoid becoming a part of the story they are trying to cover. But when budding reporter Hilde Lysak left her hometown to chase a story, her steadfast fortitude enabled her to face off against an unexpected foe, earning her kudos from around the nation.

Lysak, 12, publishes the Orange Street News out of her parents’ home in Selingrove, Pennsylvania but in February, she traveled to Arizona to file a story near the Mexican border. While riding a bike in pursuit of details, she was accosted by a local law enforcement officer.

The officer asked her for identification, falsely claimed that her video recording of him was illegal, then threatened to have her arrested and placed in a juvenile detention center. He literally told her, “I don’t wanna hear about any of that freedom of the press stuff.”

Not only did Lysak refuse to stop recording, but she transcribed the interaction and posted the video to her news site. The resulting story went viral, and the city of Patagonia later issued an apology.

From a statement by mayor Andrea Wood:

We are sorry Hilde, we encourage and respect your continued aspirations as a successful reporter. We believe and fully support the constitutional right to freedom of speech in the public sector. We will not tolerate bias of any kind including infringement of freedom of speech.

Potential Preaching Angles:

When we armed with the truth, we don’t need to be afraid of opposition. Even young ones can operate without fear if they submit to God’s truth as the ultimate authority.

Fourteen-year-old Brennan Walker missed his bus and lost his sense of direction. Unfortunately, he almost lost his life. Instructed by his mother to walk to school after he overslept and missed his bus, Walker did his best to walk the route normally taken by his bus. However, when he was unsure of which direction to take, and did not have use of his phone, he took a logical step by stopping by a local residence to ask for directions.

Walker described the interaction in his own words.

I got to the house, and I knocked on the lady's door. Then she started yelling at me and she was like, "Why are you trying to break into my house?" I was trying to explain to her that I was trying to get directions to Rochester High. And she kept yelling at me. Then the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the gun, I saw it and started to run. And that's when I heard the gunshot.

Walker's mom, Lisa Wright, expressed what we all long for in this broken and fallen world: "We should not have to live in a society where we have to fend for ourselves. If I have a question, I should be able to turn to my village and knock on a door and ask a question. I shouldn't be fearful of a child, let alone a skin tone."

Potential Preaching Angles: We are judged not by how we treat royalty, but how we treat our neighbors. When fear overrides our ability to extend compassion, we deny the humanity in each other.

On August 10, 1948, a pioneering television producer named Allen Funt debuted a hidden-camera reality TV show called Candid Camera. The genius of the show is that it caught people in the act of being themselves. It produced lots of laughs, but it also offered a fascinating look into the human psyche.

In one episode titled "Face the Rear," an unsuspecting person boarded an elevator and naturally turned around to face the front of the elevator. That's when three actors entered the elevator and faced the rear. A hidden camera in the elevator captured the angst of the prankee. To turn or not to turn? Finally, a fourth actor entered the elevator and faced the rear. Without exception, the person facing the front would turn around and face the rear. The social influence exerted by those facing the rear was too overwhelming for that person to remain the only one facing the front.

After his 15 year career in pro basketball, Rick Barry had hit a remarkable 89.9% of his shots from the free throw line. But Barry also had one of the weirdest free throw shots—an underhand shot known as the "granny style" shot.

The stats don't lie—Barry's style seems to work better than the more familiar (and cooler looking) traditional free throw shot. As Barry said, "From the physics standpoint, it's a much better way to shoot. Less things that can go wrong, less things that you have to worry about repeating properly in order for it to be successful." In 2008, when Discover magazine asked a physics professor who agreed: the 45-degree arc angle and the natural backspin both increase the odds of the ball going into the net, relative to the more common method.

Wilt Chamberlain, a former NBA great who holds the record for the most points scored in one game (100), once tried it out. Over his career, Chamberlain made a pathetic 54% of his free throws. But on March 2, 1962, when he scored his 100 points, Chamberlain used the granny style approach and hit 28 of his 32 free throws.

So chances are, for many players shooting underhand is a much better strategy. So, why don't more players use this free throw style? (And why did Chamberlain give it up?) Rick Barry and Malcolm Gladwell propose a simple answer: because players are too embarrassed or too proud—or both. It looks silly, and most players would rather miss shots than look like a "granny" and score more points.

A 12-year-old girl in New York City is being hailed for her bravery in a recent argument with a male classmate that almost turned violent. The dispute? The boy asked for one of her McDonald's chicken nuggets-but she refused. The police report says that after being denied once, the boy then followed the girl into a nearby subway station, pulled out a gun, and pointed the weapon at her head. Incredibly, reports say that the girl slapped the boy's hand away, told him to leave her alone, and went about the rest of her day. Police found and appropriately charged the boy for juvenile attempted robbery, and the chicken-nugget-loving girl of New York City quickly become an internet sensation. You go, girl.

Potential Preaching Angle: (1) Courage; Boldness; Temptation; Satan —With a positive take on this story, you could talk about this girl's courage in refusing to give in to intimidation, oppression, or temptation. Sure, it was just a chicken nugget, but this girl refused to be bullied by a force for evil. (2) Temptation; Sin; Addiction—In contrast, a negative take on this story could focus on the girl's inability to let go of a chicken nugget—just like we hold on to our sin.

Football referees are unbiased, right? They would never be influenced by fans or football players, right? Well, according to a study football refs are often swayed by their surroundings. Michael Lopez, a researcher and statistician at Skidmore College in New York, led a study that referees are much more likely to make calls that favor the team whose coaches and players are on the sideline closest to the potential penalty.

Lopez analyzed five years of NFL games, including 1,400 penalty calls where the action happened close to one team's sideline or the other. One of the files he examined was whether referees called a late hit on a player. If one player is tackling another, you're allowed to do it while the opposing player is within bounds but not if he's out of bounds. But the bodies are usually flying into one another near a sideline. It's what's called a bang-bang play: it all happens so quickly and the refs have to make a judgment call.

Lopez measured how often these kinds of judgment calls go in favor of the team whose coaches are on the sideline closest to where the potential penalty is taking place. He found referees are much more likely to make calls that comply with what people nearest to them are demanding. In short, intimidation works. Pressure the refs, get in their face, and they will often cave into social pressure.

Bryan Stephenson, author of Just Mercy and founder of an organization that tries to help those unjustly convicted of crimes, was trying to free a man who was clearly innocent. About a dozen people had seen him when he allegedly committed the crime, but none of those people were allowed in the courtroom because they were African-Americans. So Stephenson complained to the judge, who reluctantly allowed Stephenson to admit a few of these eyewitnesses.

One older black woman named Mrs. Williams was chosen to represent this group. But there was another big problem: a huge German shepherd stood guard outside the courtroom. When Mrs. Williams, who was deathly afraid of dogs, saw the dog she froze and then her body began to shake. Tears started running down her face before she turned around and ran out of the courtroom.

Later she said, "Mr. Stevenson, I feel so badly, I let you down today. I was meant to be in that courtroom. I should have been in that courtroom." And she started to cry, and I couldn't console her. She said, "I wanted to be in there so bad. But when I saw that dog all I could think about was Selma, Alabama 1965. I remember how they beat us, and I remember the dogs. I wanted to move and I tried to move but I just couldn't do it." And she walked away with tears running down her face.

The next day her sister told Stevenson that Mrs. Williams didn't eat or talk to anybody all night. They just heard her praying all night long the same prayer: "Lord, I can't be scared of no dog. Lord, I can't be scared of no dog." The next morning she walked up to Stevenson and said, "I ain't scared of no dog. I ain't scared of no dog" and then she walked right past that huge German shepherd into the courtroom.

The courtroom was packed when the judge walked in and everybody rose and sat down—except Mrs. Williams. She told the entire courtroom in a loud, firm voice: "I'm here!" But Stevenson said, "What she was saying wasn't that she was physically present. She was saying, I may be old, I may be poor, I may be black, but I am here because I got a vision of justice that compels me to stand up to injustice. And that was when the tide for the case turned.

Before walking out of jail a free man in February, Albert Woodfox spent 43 years almost without pause in an isolation cell, becoming the longest standing solitary confinement prisoner in America. He had no view of the sky from inside his 6 foot by 9 foot concrete box, no human contact, and taking a walk meant pacing from one end of the cell to the other and back again.

Then in April 2016 he found himself on a beach in Galveston, Texas, in the company of a friend. He stood marveling at all the beachgoers under a cloudless sky, and stared out over the Gulf of Mexico as it stretched far out to the horizon. "You could hear the tide and the water coming in," he says. "It was so strange, walking on the beach and all these people and kids running around."

Of all the terrifying details of Woodfox's four decades of solitary incarceration … perhaps the most chilling aspect of all is what he says now. Two months after the state of Louisiana set him free on his 69th birthday, he says he sometimes wishes he was back in that cell.

"Oh yeah! Yeah!" he says passionately when asked whether he sometimes misses his life in lockdown. "You know, human beings … feel more comfortable in areas they are secure. In a cell you have a routine, you pretty much know what is going to happen, when it's going to happen, but in society it's difficult, it's looser. So there are moments when, yeah, I wish I was back in the security of a cell." He pauses, then adds: "I mean, it does that to you."

Former pro soccer star Landon Donavan was the standard-bearer of American soccer for more than a decade. When Donovan was growing up in California, he had a T-shirt that read: "Soccer is Life. The rest is just details." Recently Donovan admitted, "[Soccer] was my identity." But in the last stage of his career that identity started to crack. From 2012-2013 Donovan struggled with depression, watched his celebrity marriage disintegrate, and took a four-month break from soccer.

The pressure to perform and keep pleasing fans and coaches became too much. Donavan said:

[Fans, coaches, and the media] want us to live, breathe, eat, and die the sport. Every game they want you to go out and do everything you can to make the fans feel good, make the coach feel successful, make the owners successful … After the '06 World Cup … I realized, clearly, that it was a business. And that it was fickle. I was foolish enough to think that these people who were showing me so much love genuinely liked me .… [But after the '06 World Cup people said], "Now you had a bad World Cup. We don't think you're that cool anymore." That, for me, was a very eye-opening experience. And it made me very sad.

But then he added: "At the time, it was by far the hardest thing that ever happened to me in my life. But the beauty is it was the best thing that ever happened to me, and it allowed me to wake up and see the world differently for the first time."