Family Matters

Having worked for the same company for many years, I enjoy good job security. I support my family and make enough to put a little away in savings. But my wife says I don't try hard enough to “get ahead.” She says I have a fear of failure. I tell her that I'm just cautious. Besides, why should we men always have to be “ambitious”?

Charity will help you resist the urge to snap back: “If I feared failure, I wouldn't have married you!”

Seriously, it sounds like your wife wants you to reach a little higher. So the question is: Should you?

Your appeal to caution might imply that you carefully and prudently examine your opportunities before acting. Of course, this is wise. But it could also mean that, unless everything is perfect, you don't move. Fear of failure means you don't act because you're afraid of how the possible results will change your life or what they'll say about you as a person. The fear of failure, or kakorraphiaphobia, can indeed prevent a person from trying something new. It is a fear of all risks and, therefore, most opportunities. Often fear of the unknown is worse than failure itself.

Two characteristics are common among those who fear failure. One, they take failure personally: They confuse making a mistake with being a mistake. And, two, they see each failed effort as a wall to stop at (or reverse direction for) rather than a hill to get over or go around.

And, of course, all human fear is aggravated by original sin. For example, vanity can unduly concern us with others’ opinions of us. Pride might make us feel like we always have to be in control. And sensuality could cause us to procrastinate simply because the effort ahead seems so demanding. (As the old saying goes: A body in motion wants to stay in motion; a body at rest wants to stay at rest.)

Remember that it's nearly always less productive to attack a weakness than it is to develop its opposite virtue. Why? Simply because it's easier to do something positive than to avoid something negative. Sacrificing lovingly for others, like Christ or your wife, can defeat vanity. Knowing that you may indeed fail, but humbly turning control over to God, can undermine pride. And thinking with hope of long-term benefits can subjugate sensuality.

In order to do all that developing, what you need is an extra dose of the virtue of magnanimity — the “noble and generous disposition to undertake great things for God and for neighbor,” as theologian Adolphe Tanquerey defined it. Magnanimity is to be distinguished from ambition, which is the pursuit of egotistical goals.

Where do you go for a booster shot of magnanimity? Where else? Go to God. Make a new decision to work with him rather than in spite of (or irrespective of) him, admit your own helplessness without him and trust his power to take you beyond your limitations.

We know that, from baptism onward, God wants us to contribute great things to the building of his kingdom. That order is too tall for any of us. So we should anticipate that he will give us the ways and means. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; on your own intelligence rely not. In all your ways be mindful of him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

If your wife is correct — and isn't it amazing how often wives are? — and you are overly cautious, then pray for the conviction to be magnanimous. Talk to your wife, talk to your spiritual director, pray often, do your best and let God worry about the results.

Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services in Vienna, Virginia, and Bethesda, Maryland.