The Fear Factor

Would you agree that we humans are driven by the fear factor? Fear is the feeling that something bad/dangerous/hurtful may happen if we do something or don’t do something. It is the fear of losing someone or oneself. Fear keeps us going and at the same time, stops us from moving further. Fear motivates and inspires us. Fear also ties and curtails us.

Once upon a time, we feared darkness and invented fire. We feared pain and invented medicines to heal. We feared loneliness and invented the family system.

We feared and we feared. Thus, we grew.

Then we also feared failures and stopped experimenting. We feared the stigma and agreed to the norms. We feared the resurrection of evil and preached goodness.

Over time, fear stopped being a four-letter word. It became the driving factor for life. Fear of living and fear of dying superseded the joy of life – another four-letter word.  

What makes us human so fearful? Most importantly why do we fear so much? To be honest, do we have any control over anything. Aren't we just part of a grand design and fluttering around due to the butterfly effect? Anyways, isn't our cognitive evolution good enough to be cautious and take measures to steer away from dangers? Why do we fail to trust our instincts. We humans were very intuitive and instinctive once. We listened to not only what fellow human beings said, but also to the entire ecosystems. We lived in unison. We believed. We trusted. We evolved. Today we are just stuck with fear and nothing else.

Everything we do these days are driven by fear.

What would have been a way of life earlier is superimposed due to the fear factor. We want to put up perfectness across due to our fear of missing out. We choose healthy lifestyle due to the fear of looking insufficient in comparison to peers or celebrities. We even commit to a family life because of the fear of not following the lead of the broader societies. We go to work because we don’t want to be an outlier. While it is important to do all these things, the motive behind why we do these is wrong. We are not doing anything for ourselves, but for our perceived self. We lose essence of who we are and what we could be. We even fear to sit back and reflect because we tend to be harsh on ourselves.

 We aim for calmness of the sea ignoring the chaos underneath. We see the beauty of flowers losing sight of ugly roots entangled in dirt under the soil. We see the butterfly and close our eyes when we see a larva. Fear has made us disillusioned.

Fear has made us judgemental too. Little joys have lost its glory.

We want to be the best. We thrive to be the best. Because that’s how we are trained all our lives.  But we know how the pyramid is. It becomes narrower as we go further ahead. What we fail to see is that we all are unique and therefore best in our little ways. We just need to let loose of our fears and inhibitions and strive to be the best version of ourselves. But then the fear of change may hit us like a thunderbolt. That’s when we should evoke our inner strength and focus on acceptance.

 The one who accepts fears nothing. The one who strives fears nothing.

And most importantly, the one who fears achieves nothing.

Now it’s up to us what we choose.

 Happiest New Year 😊