I was on the phone recently with a woman whose husband had passed away. She was telling me about his life, and I began to look down at my cell phone. We had spoken for a long time, and I wanted to finish the call and get to work on another project.  

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But I was afraid. I was afraid because I knew the widow needed to talk. I did not want to let her down. Yet, I had all the information I needed to lead the funeral service. I was afraid of not getting work done on another project. 

These two fears reveal both empathy and impatience. I was sensitive to the widow’s state of mind yet focused on what was next.

We should pay attention to our fears because of what they reveal about us. They give us insight into what matters most. They are rarely simplistic. The opposite of fear is not always courage. It is a fear of something else.

The Jewish sages understood this truth long ago. In the Jewish Bible reading cycle, we just read the story of the scouts Moses sends into the land of Israel to prepare for the Israelites’ arrival there. They return with fear and trembling. They fear the mightiness of the land’s inhabitants.

The Jewish sages, however, suggest their fear was not so simplistic. They may well have feared defeat, but they also feared victory. They feared the moral compromises they may have to make to defeat the inhabitants of the land, and they feared the responsibility they would inherit in possessing and governing it.

All of us experience competing fears, such as following:

1. Fear of failure vs. Fear of success: Most of us fear failure. We want to succeed in whatever we do: work, sports, relationships. Yet, we know success brings its own challenges. Remember the old saying; “Be careful what you wish for. It might come true.” Indeed, the number of lottery winners who end up broke and broken is extraordinary. Success is not always successful.

2. Fear of intimacy vs. Fear of loneliness: When asked to sum up the meaning of life, writer George Sand purportedly said, “to love and to be loved.” In other words, we seek intimacy from one another. We want someone to know us deeply, and to know and love another deeply in return.

Yet, intimacy also opens the door to pain. One of the prayers I read at a funeral service asks God to help us understand that “grief and love go hand and hand; that the pain which loss inflicts is the measure of a love stronger than death.” When we lose someone we love—either by death or the end of a relationship—we feel pain. As a result, part of us fears getting too close to another.

3. Fear of too much vs. Fear of too little: As a parent I constantly wonder whether I am being overly involved or too laissez-faire. Should I help my daughter solve the math problem, or let her struggle through it on her own? No parent wants to see their child fail, yet few want to be “helicopter” parents either.

So what to do we do? We need to acknowledge our fears without becoming paralyzed by them. They can reveal to us parts of ourselves, yet they can also prevent us from taking the risks that make life worthwhile.

We will never eliminate or transcend our fears. Yet, when we recognize their complexity, we can learn to embrace them. They give us clues. They make us think. They let us grow.