Fear

What does a student, worker and politician have in common?

They all have fear...


A student fears that he might not get a good grade or finish his assignments on time.

A worker fears that he might lose his job.

A politician fears that he might lose his power base.


More importantly, these people are what we are... ask yourself, what do you fear?


-What is fear and why do we fear?
Fear is a feeling of going from certainty to uncertainty. Humans love to be on a consistent and safe path and any uncertainty would mean going through the unknown which we are afraid of and try to avoid.


-Why is fear bad?
Well, we all know fear leads to negative thoughts and sometimes even plays tricks in our minds. Fear disturbs the peace of mind and clarity needed for us to go on with our lives smoothly. It limits our abilities and makes us slaves of fear itself.

So let me tell you my friends, do not fear.
Buddhist philosophy tells us not to cling on to things for everything is impermanent.
Everything, good and bad will be lost sooner or later. Friends break up, family members die, good things will come to an end and so will all bad things. Knowing this, why do we still fear?

The character Morrie in the bestseller novel "Tuesdays with Morrie tells us to learn to "detach". Here, Morrie tells us that if we fear something, we should learn to detach, which he goes on to tell us how to.

How can we detach from a feeling if we have not experienced it? Therefore, Morrie tells us to allow good and bad feelings into our hearts, diving straight into these emotions and experiencing it head on. For example, if we love somebody but are afraid to confess our feelings because we are afraid, we will never bring the relationship to the next level.

However, by diving straight into it and confessing our feelings, we get to know what love or grief is. Now that we have experienced the feeling, we recognize that emotion and we can now tell ourselves to detach from that emotion.

Since fear is the uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty, by experiencing the things we fear, we have conquered the unknown and we need not fear any longer.

-Cheers and have a good day!-