Koinophobia: the Fear of Living an Ordinary Life

Will we have time to live an interesting life? Answer: the time is now.

BY GABRIEL MATIAS CASTILHO

One day, while scrolling through my Facebook feed, I was met with an inspiring comic strip talking about how we delay things in life. It featured a man who spent his entire youth behind books, thinking about how free he would feel in college. The process would repeat itself in the following chapters of his life: in college, he would only think about how free he would be as a graduate, then as a worker, and then as a retiree. Retired, he came to realize he never allowed himself to do the things he dreamed of doing. One would take a glimpse at this comic strip and go about their day without even thinking about it, but overwhelmed by college assignments and job pressures as I was I couldn’t help to think about a simple question: will we have time to live an interesting life where we look back and approve of it? It is then that I discovered a new phobia in me—namely, Koinophobia.

Koinophobia is the fear of living an ordinary life, a fear that resembles a mid- life crisis, but instead of looking back to reassess life choices, it looks forward into what is to come. I thought the discovery of this new phobia would inspire change, but initially it only brought anxiety. What am I missing out on? What should I be doing now instead of “wasting” time in my bedroom? Thinking about all the “ifs” and “whys” served as gunpowder to this emotional mixture: at one point it would explode. But it did not. As I arrived back in the state for my senior year, out of fear of looking back at my time in Minnesota and regretting not venturing around the state, I promised myself to go out every weekend and visit a new place to hike. I look back and feel extremely happy by making this decision and transforming it into a habit. The moral of the story: maybe some phobias can be good.