Fear has gripped the world like a giant octopus, spreading its tentacles across society and deep into people’s life. It is affecting people’s psychology largely. None of us is untouched with fear; we are affected by fear in some or other way. If you analyze your own action, you would find many of the actions are respond to a deep-rooted fear in you. If I take an analogy, I would say, Fear is a highly contagious disease and it is hereditary. We pickup fear of various forms from our society every day. Pickup a newspaper and the first page of the paper will scare you to death. Parents pass on fear to their children’s, many leaders spread fear in the society to ride that fear to grab power. 

People do everything to get rid of their fears. They toil to exestuation for financial security, put electronic alarm in the house to protect the family. The atom bomb is made to protect countries. But the fear grows deeper and bigger in various forms. With growing age, the fear grows, with new kind of fear added to peoples life, and by end, life is restricted to a small shell, overwhelmed with fear. People become doubtful, suspicious, and their behavior becomes erratic and incomprehensible many times. 

Fear takes away the essence of life. It does not allow to express the inner self in the world, and that defeats the very purpose of the God’s creation. So there is no bigger sin in the world than fear. Fear transforms itself to all other negative emotions like anxiety, anger, frustration and jealousy. It is only by getting rid of fear that one can enjoy the life fully. People who are under perpetual fear would never be able to understand the blissful feeling that emerges when they live the life without fear. The benefits of living life void of fear are immense and it affects all area of life. It reduces the stress level; It improves health, interpersonal relationship, financial status, and image in the society. It is a birth right of every human being to live a life void of fear. 

The relevance of this article here is that a true leader has to be void of fear. A person can only be true leader if he/she can get rid of the fears. No one follows a scared person. People expect the leaders to take away their fears. To do that a leader has to be fearless himself. That is most important attribute of a leader. 

Understanding Fear

Fear is a life saving neurological mechanism that works in all organisms. This allows animals to prepare and respond to the life threats. It works very well with animals and saves their lives. We human have also got the same mechanism working in our mind, and that is meant for the real threat to life. Unlike ancient world, in modern society the real threats to human life are very rare. It is not wise to live in the fear in the modern society; It does more harm than the protection it gives. 

Many of the fear are the byproduct of the modern lifestyle and many are perceived or imaginary fears. Many fears have over lived its lifetime. Many a time people get so used to a fear, that they do not realize it. Origin of such fear could be somewhere in the past, or it might have built up over a period of time. 

Let me give couple of example of fears that are common among many people that I have come across, It will be easier that way to tell you what kind of fear I am talking about.

For example, fear of not being recognized. Kids do things that please the parents and get praised from them, it feels good. When they grow up they do things to please teachers, friends, spouse, boss, society, and then from children’s. That becomes such a habit that people can’t live without a constant approval from someone. If they are not recognized by the boss they give-up job. And if spouse fails to recognize the effort of the other half, the relationship goes bad. Many put all their effort to be something, and they won’t know what that something is. All they want is a bigger praise from people around. 

Another common fear among the working lot is of losing the job. Ninety percent of the working lots are in the grip of this uncanny fear. How much ever the market go down the there will be enough for all and there will be job for all. Life doesn’t end with loss of one job. The fear might be valid for ten percent of the people but not for ninety percent of the people. This fear creates havoc in a work place. This is a fear that takes away the courage and professionalism. People tend to follow the boss and do whatever pleases him/her to retain the job. Many a time this takes the focus away from doing the right thing. 

There are many fears which become self fulfilling prophesies. For example fear of failure. Whatever undertaking a person takes if there is a fear of rejection, or fear of failure, it affects the outcome. The focus is completely taken away from the success strategy to the mitigation of the fear. The fear that gets the attention and energy does take shape to reality.

There are many fears that actually add fuel to the cause of the fear and make it bigger. It is a proven fact that fears of ill health does cause ill health. Whatever a persons lifestyle is, if he consider himself healthy and do whatever a healthy person does and enjoy the health, it will make the person healthier.

The Cure of Fear

Personally I did try to get rid of many unnecessary fears that I had. To get rid of the fear of losing job, I even once put my papers without having a job in hand, to make the long story short I finally got rid of the fear.  And it did help me become a better and courageous professional; I could focuses on doing the right thing in the job, and become more relaxed on the job. 

However most of the time this method doesn’t work and it is not practical too. In many occasions this method can backfire and can strengthen the fear. I have derived better method to deal with fears. That is of taking the energy away from the fear. 

In this method one have to stop fighting against the fear. You will have to practice to not think about the fear at all. And focus on everything in the life that you already have that gives a feeling opposite to that of the fear. Those are the things that give you a feeling of empowerment, and joy. This is a method that works always. It gradually takes away the energy from the fear. The positive side of your life at the same time grows bigger and more vibrant, and making the fear insignificant and small. 

It is easier said than done. Many of our fears are not our fear alone, but those are the fear of the society that we live in. Even if we stop thinking about them, they do appear in front of us in various forms, like in the form of news blown out of proportion, exaggerated gossip etc.. I would suggest in such situations just turn around and look the other way. You don’t have to participate in a talk whose entire basis is on an uncanny fear. You have better things to do in life. Life has many good things to enjoy.