Fear

Not love, not kindness, not passion and not adventure but Fear. I wonder why it is Fear that drives our life. By ‘Life’, I mean big and small decisions that end up designing our life and how it is lived from start to finish. And result in many of us keeping those dream, those ‘Seeking’ hidden away somewhere with the fear of things going wrong or losing things on the way and end up keeping us at the bay.

Fear has its place in our lives & is one of the primal emotions. And we share it with fellow animals too. When my dog hears the fire alarm (usually when I cook steaks) he runs to the bathroom and hides in the bathtub. Now he sees the smoke and instead of waiting for a piece of steak he runs to the bathtub for protection. His Fear comes into play. But for rest of the time, when he is out, he is a bold dog who wants to explore, greet new people he meets, plays with other dogs he has never met before and chases ball just for fun (or maybe passion — depending on the ball). And when he is indoors he is chilling, eating and humping the pillow (this has stopped since his neutering — I still feel a tiny bit guilty about it but that’s another story but it was a good decision overall)

Anyways, the point is that his ‘Fear’ gets activated when it really needs to be. And not all the time. And that’s not just him but almost all dogs that I know other than ones who went through major traumas. How are we different as humans? Why are we subconsciously or consciously led by Fear during almost all our decisions and actions and not just when we are really exposed to danger like Snakes (that is my fear :)). No pun intended but it is scary how Fear drives our lives. To be clear all this is anecdotal based on people I know or see or read. Other than major traumas and real dangers, I wonder what causes these fears. To me it seems to be ingrained everywhere around us.

Stating from love and protection of our parents which sometimes breaches the line of being over-protective. Or it could be something ingrained in the society or religion which usually has a clear definition of path to be taken else suffering is almost guaranteed. And I do understand that societal and religious norms have their place to keep the decorum in the society and keep people’s morality in check. Which is fair. However, I wonder whether it has gone beyond that. And all those learnings have creeped into standardization of life and conformity instead. And a little deviation from it is questioned and suddenly fear of society and God plays a role and stops us from doing what we believe is right.

Fear could be channeled through other emotions like guilt or competitiveness (FOMO) or shame and take away the driving force that should be the main sources of our life chariot e.g. zest for life, Seeking, love, affection and most importantly our instinct. Most people I talk to, myself included, would say that they don’t care about what others think. But then I can also see that any big decision or move that is out of societal standards, even when right, will have trouble executing. And even though we do not accept it, it is driven by the Fear of deviating from the standards. Because we think of standards as THE right way and forget that they are right only ‘generally’ as a guidance, but we all have our own truth and own situation, and societal norms cannot cover all the situations alike. Most situations they can but there are always exceptions. And ends up making us think our decision or thought process is wrong or there must be something that we are missing. It is probably a good practice to check against societal standards as long as it does not stifle our decision making. The norms were set based on the need to be ethical, being kind and being fair to others and to avoid an unstructured world. But there are exceptions which are still ethical and kind.

And these fear are generally in the form of fear of failing — usually in the form of ‘I told you’ or fear of losing what we have and what we should be happy with and ofcourse fear of looking like an idiot, not to anybody else but in our own eyes. It is a different question whether it is better or worse than having that nagging feeling, that most of us cannot recognize, that is telling us everyday that we are an idiot for not giving it a try.

Two of my biggest fears are (i) fear of hurting others and (ii) fear of making wrong decisions. In first look they may both appear to be sensible fears but they are not. They are not driven by right motivations. Deep inside my heart I know that I would never want to hurt anyone and I know it is true for almost everyone of us (I believe in good in people — yes I am one of them :)). And I feel I am hiding behind that fear from doing something that is right. Something I know is right. But does not fit the societal standards and also not the standards that I have set for myself over years. But now I try to make my decisions not because of fears but knowing what is really true and what is right logically, emotionally and practically from a long term perspective. Of course I could be wrong. And of course, it may result in guilt sooner or later. We never know but at least can avoid that nagging feeling of not trying. That brings me to the second fear of making wrong decisions. For this, I have somewhat realized that I will never know for most of them. I will never know what the alternate decision would have led to. Nobody knows. There are so many things in play that we will never know. But I try to make decisions based on all my thinking and all my wisdom whatever it is worth. Whether I am telling myself lies, I don’t know. Usually, I have a radar to catch lies, whether told by others or my own to myself.

I understand all this is very simple to say but difficult to execute. A 3 steps approach helps me. I try to just ask a question to myself whether my feeling about the decision is driven by fear. Then think of worst-case scenario if I took a decision. And last step is to ask myself whether I can live with the worst-case scenario (and whether I have any precedents of living with such outcomes). These steps help usually. I have several examples of when my decisions were not the best ones but I have some solid ones when I went against the fear and norms and they served me really well. And very likely if I had not taken those I would be in a worse spot in many ways. An example that I can share is when I started working out. I was 14 years old, maybe 45kg and 5ft 3 inches tall. Almost everyone told me I was too young to go to gym and it would just stop my height growth. I still remember I was worried about it and would ask anyone and everyone for advice. There was no google, Quora or Medium then. But I took the plunge and never stopped working out. And after almost 30 years, I can easily say that it was the best decision of my life and it was taken against all fears and norms during those days in that place. It served me well. I wasn’t sure then whether it was the right decision, but my instinct told me that it was. Thanks to that, when I look at the mirror I don’t see an idiot.