What Is The Fear Of Decision Making In On The Rainy River

The Fear of Decision Making In the short story, On The Rainy River by Tim O'Brien, he writes about what he did after he got his draft notice and his fear of going to the war and getting killed. He ran to the Canadian border to run away from this duty but in the end could not run away because of his cowardliness. Fear is the feeling of being afraid of something or to avoid or put off doing something because one is afraid. Everyone is afraid of different things such as spiders or the dark or monsters under the bed but everyone is afraid of making the wrong decisions. The outcome of this short story is different from Moses's view of war in the Bible. When he was speaking to his army he told them, “do not panic or be terrified by them. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory”

He froze, “couldn't decide, I couldn't act”(81) O'Brien was too afraid to jump, his fear held him back. The pride he had at the beginning when he felt as though he was too good to go to war had now dwindled to nothing as he, “sat in the bow of the boat and cried.” (83) Adults often seek help when making decisions because when people are making decisions that could impact their life, input from others is helpful. Everyone is faced with decisions in life and fear of making the wrong decisions has a negative impact on the end result. Bain said in his article about fear in decision making that, “people are often so frozen by fear from making a wrong decision that they don't make a decision at all and life passes them by.” (Bain, 1) This statement describes what happened in O'Brien's situation as well. Instead of making the decision to jump off the boat and swim to Canada, he was so afraid of what others would think that he went back home and that decision changed the course of his entire