F.E.A.R

"Fear is that little dark room where negatives are developed" (Michael Pritchard)

Source: www.dancingwithhappiness.com

Hello Everyone,

When I was a little kid I once saw a horror movie and even though I was afraid of watching it I still watched it fully. The problem began after I watched it. I was not able to sleep. I still remember I used to sleep on edge side of the bed which was beside the window. That night I just could not sleep there and I even said to my mom that I did not want to sleep there. Now when I think of those days I laugh on the stupidity of what used to be my thought process. But in that age it was not stupid at all. In that age it was sheer fear of known and sometimes unknown. In this blog I will touch upon the meaning, origins and actions against "FEAR", something which resides in everyone of us.

I will start by saying that very few people can claim that that have no fear of any kind. In fact as we mature the type of fear in us also changes. When we are kids we are afraid of ghosts, dark places, when we are teen we are afraid of failing exams, when we go into relationships we have fear that our girlfriend or boyfriend will leave us and chose someone else over us, when we get into family (well I have not reached there but still...) parents fear for the safety of their kids, when we are in jobs we have fear of reprimands, bad performance etc.. The list goes on. In every stage of life we have some or other kind of fear. If someone after reading this says that they have no such fear then they have probably fear of admitting they have some fear.

But the big questions is why and where these fears come from? The first one I listed is the most easy to address. Parents try to protect keep kids in line by telling them about strange men who will kidnap them if they went out of the house, through ghosts and other imaginary beings. Parents are directly responsible for instilling these fears. Another big reason for developing various fears later in life is lack of optimism and negative reinforcement which most of the people employ to get their work done. What most people forget is that positive reinforcement is much better approach than negative reinforcement. I will target one area specifically. The students have a eternal fear of failure, non performance and letting their parents down. The number of suicides among students have increase by 26% to 7379 since 2006. This is a drastic increase. A huge factor in this increase is negative reinforcement.

Negative reinforcement means that in order to get the work done you keep the person in line by telling him about the bad consequences in case he does not complete the work where as positive reinforcement is when you tell the person about the incentives that he can get in case he completes the work. The religious gurus are the best examples of negative reinforcement. I don't need to say any further. The movie OMG very eloquently captures this aspect.

When a kid is born he has no fear, how he can when he knows nothing about the world. The fears come into him over time through us only. In my opinion fear is not the best way to get something done because it might get your work done but it also kills a part of the person permanently. Fear clouds the judgment of the person, fear reduces the efforts of the person in most of the cases, fear makes people insecure, fear causes fights and troubles, "fear is that little darkroom where only negatives are developed".

You cannot associate any positives with fear. So why fear. Turn your fears into positive energy by understanding your fears and channeling it into work. I have done and have succeeded. I will not say I don't have any fears but I do try to get rid of them. I found two very beautiful definitions of FEAR:

Face Everything And Rejoice and Face Everything And Resign

So what are you - Rejoicer or Runner? Cheer and don't fear.

Thanks
Genie Signing off
email: arunesh.genie@gmail.com