Beyond fear--forging a new path.

Abstract

I have chosen to speak about something that everyone in this audience has felt—fear. In some situations, it can preserve us; in others, it can destroy us. Fear is the starting point of my speech. However, as the title suggests, I plan to move well past it. By acknowledging and even embracing our fears, we can use that energy to our own advantage. In Chinese characters, the word crisis is represented by danger on one side and by opportunity on the other. Throughout history, it has always been the same: one door closes as another opens. The American Orthopaedic Association has a new mission and a new direction, and I intend to see that our efforts are not thwarted by what is within or what is without. Despite its many detractors, the future looks very bright, as I will describe later, but some of us may be a little too mired in the present to see it. During times of vast, sweeping change, humans respond in a variety of different ways. However, when the change is relatively sudden, the most pervasive initial response is fear. Fear is a four-letter word in every sense. Edmund Burke said: “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” Fear or anxiety can have disastrous long-term and short-term results. It causes a narrowing of one's perspective on time so that only the present matters. It also often results in an inability to attend to more than one task at a time or to complete any task effectively. It interrupts and distorts organized thought processes. The central feature that characterizes fear is a feeling that one will not be able to master future events. Sound familiar? There is no doubt that fear has become a pervasive emotion …