Nenad is driving, while I am looking through the window on the right. We are silent... At some point we bypass the truck. I suddenly realize that something is wrong. The car is moving too early towards the right lane. The thought runs through my head that we might slip under the truck. We're closer .... then even closer. My heart is pounding now. Something is seriously wrong! We'll hit the truck! I turn to Nenad and manage to shout his name. He wakes up and starts to turn the steering wheel to the left in panic. We're hitting the front wheel of a truck ... but that's all. We stay alive.

In such or similar situations when we are in direct danger to be seriously hurt or to die, our most probable reaction is fear or panic followed by strong physiological mobilization of the body. However, in some other, potentially dangerous situations, things are a little bit different.

As my heart is pounding through my chest, I am preparing to parachute for the first time. Marko jumped before me without thinking, shouting: ‘Victory !!!!’. It really annoys me, because now I feel like a coward, while I think about giving up. A lot of things rush through my mind. Who knows what could go wrong. Then I start laughing. I think who else is shouting ‘Victory!’ before the jump ... I know I can jump. I went through the training and I know everything I need to know. I'll jump ... I take a deep breath and cast myself off. Everything will be ok ... My heart rate is 200 or 2000, I don't know, but the feeling is great…

Fear is always the result of assessment that we are in the situation for which we are not prepared enough. As such, it is a kind of care for oneself and will to live. It is our guardian and friend. When the danger is real, fear prepares our body to fight, run or ‘to freeze’. Through thousands of years of evolution, those reactions ensured survival and it was all very useful ... while we lived in a cave and when we met bears every day. Now things are quite different ... Our lives are, realistically, rarely endangered, but our survival system still works perfectly.

The fears that are predominant today are: fear of failure, success, shame, abandonment, loneliness, flying a plane, boat ride, birds, mice, cats, clowns and the like. Of course, all these fears are often a problem we want to get rid of.

There is another phenomenon, very close to fear, that we have to mention here. It is anxiety. Unlike fear, anxiety is a completely different experience. It is slower, more diffuse, vague and puts us in a state of prolonged discomfort and expectation that something bad will happen. It is not easy to define the object of fear, it is often unclear what we are afraid of, or we simply fear of almost everything.

So, the problem arises when our survival system tells us that there is a danger, and there is actually no danger or the probability of danger is very small.

There is only 5 minutes left until the meeting. I am supposed to say only a few sentences about what have been done during the previous week and I feel like I'm reporting on a mission to land on Mars. I am completely incompetent. I feel worthless. I will embarrass myself. I’ll freeze and won’t be able to say anything. Everybody will think I am stupid and miserable. I’m already sweaty all over. My heart is pounding like crazy. My mouth is so dry that it seems to me it will stuck and I won’t be able to speak up. I need to go to the bathroom. 3 minutes left to the meeting... this is hell.

At the cognitive level anxiety and irrational fears are often accompanied by thinking everything will be a catastrophe, i.e. thoughts that the worst thing that can happen will actually happen. It looks like Murphy's Law on steroids. All this is often accompanied by thoughts that we will not be able to adequately cope with the given situation. In the end, the worst thing is that the whole flow of thought is repeated over and over again.

We have all experienced that we cannot do anything right due to anxiety. Then it is almost impossible to present ourselves at our best. According to Barbara Fredrickson, negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety, narrow our thinking and acting repertoire. That is why we are blocked or functioning catastrophically. It certainly is the case, because our body is preparing to fight a bear, which actually isn’t there, instead of preparing us for a public speaking.

The good news is that the positive emotions broaden the thinking and acting repertoire and give us the possibility to show what we actually are. That is our chance! However, there is even better news. You probably know that anxiety is not bad per se. A certain amount of anxiety drives us and puts us in a state of optimal functioning. In that sense, we can talk about disturbing and supportive anxiety. One study found that whether anxiety would interfere with or support us during an activity depended on how we interpreted it. If we interpret it as supportive, it will be supportive, and vice versa. So, it is not only important how we perceive the situation, but also how we interpret what is happening to us in such a situation.

At this point, I will risk giving an answer to the question: ‘Is fear something that is holding us back or driving us?’ I would say neither, and both. A lot depends on us.