Fear

What Is Fear?

Fear is a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence and imminence of danger. It is state or condition marked by such a feeling. It is an emotional response to a perceived threat. Actually, it is an in-built basic survival mechanism. It is an instinct. We all have fears. Fear of the monstrous cockroaches, lizards and some people even fear cats or dogs. Others fear simple things like water because they can't swim while some are afraid of aliens and UFO. Lots of people are afraid of the dark because they think there are ghosts waiting to devour them. Students fear exams or suffer from exam fatigue. Lots of people fear they have no money or do not have enough, yet when they have more or too much they fear again of losing it. Too much fear and it becomes a phobia. Why do people fear and what exactly is fear? How do we overcome it? Or at worse get used to it and make fear your friend. "Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom". - Bertrand Russell.

Just look at the UFOs in the background. When we lack knowledge about something, we fear. Be it a subject or a person. An awareness of fear is necessary so that one won't get too reckless. A child who can't swim may jump into a pool but after choking on water that comes out through the nose, he then has some wisdom on what he should do the next time especially when near water. An adult knows more but he cannot be all-knowing, so he has more fears than a child. Once you had chewed on a duck's behind you may hate and fear ducks for the rest of your life except Donald and Daffy. You may have the knowledge but still fear because it has a grip on your emotions so it became your phobia. This is called duckassphobia. Lol. Some folks fear the durian. Had Isaac Newton sat under a durian tree we will still be fighting gravity without knowing it. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBJSFOpuRN4.

Knowledge & Emotion

Knowledge is a fear-remover but may not be enough as you will have to deal with emotions too but without knowledge fear is king. Gordon Liddy tied himself to a tree during a storm to overcome his fear of lightning. This is overboard and dramatic but overcoming fear is really about coming to terms right down to the root cause of that fear. If your emotion is greater than your knowledge you fail as the knowledge becomes useless as logic is unable to function in the presence of strong emotion. Knowledge is affirmative, emotion can be irrational.

Some people may fear going through a tunnel. Tell that to a miner who spends so much time underground and in pitch darkness. The list of main fears of people are: Fear of bugs (spiders, mice, snakes, bats), heights, water (drowning), public transportation, storms, closed spaces, tunnels and bridges, crowds and public speaking. Fear of passing out is called "palantaphobia", "doxophobia" is the fear of receiving praise, arachnophobia is the fear of spiders, katsaridaphobia is the fear of cockroaches, scoliodentosaurophobia is the fear of lizards. Aviophobia is the fear of flying, Agliophobia is the fear of pain, caligynephobia is the fear of beautiful women, chrometophobia is fear of money (can't believe it!), claustrophobia - confined spaces, acrophobia - heights, fear of cats is Ailurophobia and Shankalotphobia is a golfer's fear of shanking a shot. The latter was created as a new term by yours truly.

At other times, people may see the light but they are afraid that the light at the end of a tunnel could be an on coming train so they may refuse to budge preferring to stay in the hole like an ostrich. Ostriches don't know better that when their head is in the hole, their asses are sticking up like sore thumbs. In other words, everything is the same whether you want to see it or not but it remains that your head is forever in the hole. You refuse to acknowledge and work on it. The pix here is of an emu the second largest bird in the world after the ostrich and do you know that ostriches burying their heads in a hole is just a myth! It has never happened but many people still thought they do.

Fear is the absence of courage but courage is not an absence of fear but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear for the fearless are merely fearless but people who act in spite of their fear are truly brave! Mark Twain said that "courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."

3 Common Fears

We can easily find 3 common fears if you were to ask anyone anywhere anytime - cockroaches, lizards and cats. The most fearsome cockroaches are the commando-type that flies. Maybe a roach has crawled over your feet or flew into your head or a lizard fell from the ceiling onto you or a cat grazed your legs giving you goose bumps while you were eating outside. To me, fear of all three are the same. The logic is that when a cat, lizard or roach knows that you are near, they will scurry away and in case they don't, making some noise or stomping your feet will send them away. They don't attack you do they? Such fears can actually limit your ability to function because you become irrational and life can be more difficult. Do you suffer from your phobia or can you overcome your fear and live life outside of such fear?

Overcoming Fears

Q: Why do you need to move beyond these fears? A: Because overcoming a fear or phobia allows and empowers you to move on and beyond others as well. Each fear you conquered you get in exchange for more life. Like scaling a peak. When you conquered it, it is very very liberating. It is sweet and it is powerful. It sets you free. There is really only one thing that can help you overcome all these - your mind. When you sense fear whatever it may be in your case, only two things will happen. Flight or fight. I am a fighter and have never taken to fleeing. Not everything can be challenged like twenty men running at you with knives. In this case, the fear in you is one that is life-threatening and of impending danger so an instinct of life preservation will kick in - flee like you have never ran before.

When fear is irrational or imagined, your life cannot be productive. Life stops for the day because a lizard in in the house. Some people feel that others are always looking at or talking about them when nobody really cares and when really nobody cares, they feel rejected. When these things get a grip on you, one cannot strive or venture to be a better person. What should you do? (1) Identify your fears, acknowledged and accept it knowing it is human. (2) Analysis - Is it real or imagined? Use only logic to analyse not emotion like has a roach killed anyone or a lizard eaten anybody? What's the worst that can happen and don't you think you can deal with it? (3) Never run away from trouble, face the problem. Cats, lizards and roaches are here to stay and their types will outlive us. Live with them. (4) Use the above to process your mind repeatedly and you will feel more power to deal with it. (5) Conquer - even if you have not conquered it at first, you have upped the ante and increase your courage tremendously. Remember, all fears are the same. You conquer one it helps you to build immunity to conquer all.

Symptoms Of Fear

Certain areas of the brain are activated when you encounter fear. Chemicals like your adrenalin and stress hormones are released into the blood stream to give you various reactions like sharpened senses, perspiration, more rapid heart beats, muscle tension and higher blood pressure. Sometimes you may read about superhuman efforts to save someone trapped under a car or in other kinds of disasters. Fear like stress is sometimes necessary to enhance performance when directed correctly as it helps you to have a sharpened focus but when it becomes excessive and overwhelming, it hinders, suffocates and cripples you making you feel like just wanting to escape from it all.

Escape

When one escapes at the most inappropriate time, you look just like this little fellow here. You do not wish to fail, you don't want to face it so you don't want to turn up. Many people who tried to escape from their problems turned to alcohol or worse things to help them forget. This is like the action of an ostrich - head in the hole so you can't see a thing but your butt is sticking up. Escapism is no relief at all. If anything, you spent all your money on substance abuse till you become broke and destroy yourself physically and mentally but nothing has changed one bit. Fear and escapism takes over your life and you cannot even function normally on a daily basis. I can tell you now that many of you out there are already worrying about tomorrow or next week. You preempt events that have not happened yet and think the worst of it and make yourself sick and silly today. When next week comes along, the event may not even take place. Leave next week's or tomorrow's problems for next week and tomorrow.

Anxiety

Anxiety is future orientated fear based on worrying about what might happen in future as we cannot control upcoming issues, problems and events. How not to be anxious? It is easy. We should all realised by now that we can actually control very few things in life. So relax and let go. Who says we have to control everything and be a control freak. The best laid plans can often go awry.

Panic

People are panicky when their alarm bells are always ringing. When your alarm bells ring when there is nothing to be afraid of, it is panic. Panic is often an irrational and unreal fear. It can affect us both physically and emotionally. Draining us of the ability to achieve our fullest potential. Children in particular and even teenagers can have unfounded and over-reactive fear that cause anxiety. Youngsters and children can be hard to console or be assured by parents as their feel of their fears and phobias are very imminent and real.

The Axe In The Cellar

There was a man and his wife who lives in a house with a cellar. One day, the wife went down to the cellar to pick up some stuffs and to her horrors she found an axe lodged onto a cross section of the ceiling cutting half-way into the wooden block just where the entrance/exit was. She started crying. After awhile, she decided she must share this tragedy with her husband. When he heard the story he went down with the wife to see for himself but he enquired why the wife had to cry. She explained about her fear that one day in the future when they have children, they may send their children there to pick up things and if over time the axe got loosen from where it was lodged it may come crashing down and kill their children. After listening intently and emotionally the husband started to cry too. They wailed and could not be comforted for this may be exactly what would happen in future. What a tragedy! How unfortunate! Remove that axe in your cellar er I mean remove that axe in your self lah.

The children are the good things of your future and the axe the bad things you may see now or mayhappen in future. Firstly, when you see the axe, do something about it now! Even if you have to drag a ladder along in order to reach it. Even when you pull and tug, it may not come off immediately despite your efforts. When one hand is not enough, use two. Or two persons. Working at it continuously and with intent, it is a matter of time the axe would be dislodged. Removing the axe is a definite success but you have to do it now and with continuous and sustained efforts. It is not a take it or leave it situation.
Quotes

What then is dare? If you think you dare not, you don't.
Failure is not about falling down, it is the staying down - Maru Pickford.
A ship in harbour is safe but that is not what ships are built for - William Shedd.
A man can succeed in almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm - Charles Schwab.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings - Samuel Johnson.
One can pray for an easy life or pray to be stronger. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers but pray for powers equal to your tasks then the doing of your work shall be no miracle but you shall.

The degree of one's emotion varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts - the less you know the hotter you get - Bertrand Russell.

Most Effective Way

Some people may need to see a psychiatrist or psychologist may be even a hypnotist. You know those folks who make you sit on a couch, hypnotise you and make you go a long way back to your childhood where you remember that you lost a marble or some one called you a sissy or tomboy which affected you till this day. Then you come around to find a huge bill causing you more fear and developing another kind of phobia - pennilessphobia.

Use your mind to reverse and subvert all your fears. No need to go back to childhood. Just your last encounter. Challenge your fears. It is the most effective way. However, do use your common sense. If you are afraid of losing money and afraid of casinos then please stay away from them. Don't challenge them because you can't win. Casinophobia can leave you more than just penniless. Look at this pix. Seems like an alien plucking off some one's head. If I were to show to the early men thousands of years ago, they may even worship me. It was just me and my son fooling around.

Real Fear

Meanwhile, there are fears that are real and if you are not careful, you can get into serious troubles. Like people harassing you to part with your money before the currency crisis. Golfers also face real dangers like a guy who was bitten by a crocodile in Malacca and others but man can be as dangerous if not more. Have a good look at this sign board: "Any persons (except players) caught collecting golf balls on this course will be prosecuted and have their balls removed". You better take heed.

Finally...

Be brave. Bravery takes training, seasoning and a certain leap of faith. It helps that you believe in God or someone upstairs. The following pix tells it all. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil... 

Pray

When all else fails, pray. Better still pray from the start. You will feel comforted and empowered. Old churches like the one here can provide some serenity. I believe they have kneeling pads in case you get sore knees. If not, bring along your own if you expect to be on your knees long. However, do not let your mind wonder. You may imaging yourself in a Hollywood movie where the bad guys are about to come and kill you. They usually do that scene in a church.

Bertrand Russell said: "Collective fear stimulates herd instincts and tend to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd." Imagine a group of people who fear cockroaches banded together as a group and demonstrate ferocity to those who do not fear cockroaches. You get the point?

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. - Bertrand Russell.

I hope by now you will have very good reasons to overcome all your fears and feel very liberated and free. It is very rewarding. Trust me. Muahahahaha....