Number one. 

That there won't be an apocalypse in my lifetime. So ever since I was like young and my dad used to tell me stories, he would tell us stories about what we would do after the apocalypse like where we would go and how we would survive. That was like our nighttime stories. So we would be like Dad tells a story and he'd be like "OK. So after the war occurs, what we're going to do is we're gonna get in the van and we're going to drive up to Silverton Colorado because there's mines there and we can live in one of the mines. And in the morning it's gonna be Charlie's job to like go like collect honey and not get attacked by the bears" and he would go through this whole thing and it was so comforting like I know what to do every morning. It's my job to go collect honey and you know what. As long as I don't die like pretty much I won that day. I'm doing OK. So like Katie's job oftentimes was to like on was to go spy on the other bad humans who want to like come and kill us because of course in a post-apocalyptic landscape the humans are the most dangerous. And Danny would help build traps to catch people who were coming through and I got to do the agricultural jobs like I would fall asleep thinking about like I'm gonna like solve the water problem and then we're going to be able to defend ourselves. Oh. By the way. If there wasn't apocalypse I would be dead within like 12 minutes. I have no rain gear. I have no idea how to read a map. I like. I don't even own a compass like....Yeah you know.

Number two. 

That I won't remember the most important moments of my life. 

Number three.

Pain. Oh my God I cannot handle pain. I like, I'm the worst human to be around when I when I'm in pain even when I'm just sick. Oh God.

Number four.

That all of my electronics will never connect up correctly.

Number Five.

My wife is a marine biologist and she like delights in telling me there's actually a Web site that just collects all the different ways that like naturalists have died in the field. And it is it's stuff like your snorkeling and then someone got dragged down 200 feet underwater by a leopard seal like how many risks should we take in our lives? And she loves to do that she loves to be a marine biologist she loves to do fieldwork and she goes to the Congo every summer. She studies fishes that live in rapids and so they like take these like canoes on the rapids. You know people get malaria. There's civil war going on on a regular basis. Oh my God I'd be the worst single parent. Being a parent is.... It's hard. It's boring. And it's like I have no idea if I'm succeeding or failing as a dad. In fact I won't know for like 20 years. And there's no criteria for whether you're doing a good job or a bad job except whether they happen to be crying at this very moment.

Number six.

When my children are in their 40s they can get whatever tattoos they want. I just don't want them to get anything before they're in their 40s. 

Number seven. That I worry too much. 

Number eight. 

Six years ago I wrote a book called The Power of Habit that did really really well. And at the same time I started working on a series for The New York Times that ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize. And I've got a lot of years left and so I worry like like when I look back at my life is like that going to be the peak? Like is everything kind of a downhill from there? I'm just I'm scared that umm, maybe I'm not as talented as as I wish I was.

Number nine.

That I won't have a deep and meaningful relationship with my children. My dad loved talking to me and like I always felt bad because I didn't love talking to him even though I loved him. I also like sort of dreaded calling him right because it was like super boring and he would like talk about like nonsense and he's like just like I I.... (sigh) When ummm I started the company with him and he made me crazy. He is a terrible businessman. He was like like the worst. It was the worst choice ever. My father passed away this last year. You know towards the end of his life I feel like I had a really close relationship with him. And maybe that's why I think about this is because I want my kids to feel like they can have that with me. I don't know how to do that though. Like. Like how how do you be a friend to your children without screwing them up?

Number 10.

That the people I most admire don't admire me.

My name is Charles Duhigg and these are 10 things that scare me.

WHISPER: I made it to the minds of Silverton, don't tell anyone else.