Combating our irrational fears
What lenses are you wearing- the lens of truth OR the lens of distorted reality ?
TL;DR: Update your belief system, get out of your comfort zone, do hard stuff.
Then there will be no room for fear to exist.
If one or more of your fears are on the following list, read on:
1. Not living up to others' expectations
2. Feeling unwanted in a gathering (social anxiety)
3. Having to see someone dear leave you
4. Not being 'successful' enough (rather not 'appearing' successful enough)
5. Being judged unfairly by others and being ridiculed for expressing an opinion
6. Being judged for the way you look and dress or the way you speak
7. Not fitting the normal
8. Having less than your neighbour/ friend/ colleague
9. Being lonely
10. Fear of missing out (especially not staying connected on social media)
11. Perhaps the biggest: being doomed to be sad forever
Always try to rationalise these fears as most of them are a result of our own cognitive biases. Our brain always tends to show us the negative in anything. It is always on alert for us so as to avoid any oncoming pain and suffering. It makes us believe in things that may not be true at all.
We are so scared to suffer that even a hint of something negative shakes us up. And as a reaction to this negative stimuli, as a method of self protection, we distance ourselves from it and by doing so we distance ourselves from reality and form our own distorted views about it. And the harder we try to avoid pain and suffering, the more entangled we get in this loop.
If any of these fears would have been a physical reality, the suggestion would have been to take on them head on. But since all of these are just a result of our biased thoughts only, combating them needs a different perspective. The perspective of human suffering at large. I believe, embracing suffering itself may help us in rationalising our fears.
Let us view suffering from three points of view.
1. From perspective of Buddhism/ Stoicism/ similar philosophy:
Buddha, after enlightenment, realised that there is suffering everywhere, whether you are rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, male or female. And it is inescapable. The point is, if we are anyway doomed to suffer forever, then why bother overthinking about it. Buddha perhaps wanted the soul to be detached from all emotional highs and lows and to keep moving on.
A similar idea is suggested by some stoic philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius etc. Their idea suggesting to be an impassive observer of your emotions in the journey of life.
2. From perspective of people other than you:
In my personal opinion, I believe most of our fears germinate from our basic nature as animals- to live in groups and not get left behind. Animals away from their group were the ones who were hunted for prey. Your chances of survival went down pretty fast once you were away from your group.
So we are always trying to fit in a group. We are afraid of being seen as different from others, lest we become a prey.
The popular opinion is since everyone is suffering in their own way, no one seems to care about others. So if no one is bothered with another, i.e. if there is no sense of community, where the hell is everyone trying to fit in ?
And so some disillusioned folks derive a half baked conclusion. They tend to become stone cold towards others' feelings and forget the basic building blocks of human bonding and society which are kindness and compassion.
The truth is, most people do care and gravitate towards love and kindness.
There is hardly any suffering or fear where there is unbound love and affection.
Sadly, the truth also is that everyone wants unconditional love, but put conditions while giving it themselves.
Sure, from time to time we must reject people in our life whose sole purpose is to suck out all the positive energy. Perhaps, those people who do not necessarily slow us down but also who do not push us further towards a better life, may also need removal from time to time. But apathy towards each and everyone is never a solution no matter how much you have been wronged in life by others.
3. From perspective of self:
Don’t chase happiness, chase long term satisfaction.
We have been lied to our whole lives. By our parents, by our teachers, by people who wished no good for us, by television, by media, by those disney-esque movies that told us everything will be alright and there is someone / something special waiting to happen to all of us. We have been given the comforting lies instead of the cold hard truth.
Consequently, we don’t live in reality, but in our own distorted version of what we believe to be what it actually is.
There is an urgent need to update our belief systems in order to be beat the shit our of all of our mental blockages. What it means is we need to put on our ‘lens of truth' whenever we observe something or are told about an opinion. We need to hold our horses while making decisions because things done in haste are not the things that we have fully rationalised. It is just our reflexes/ emotions reacting to a situation based on the distorted version of reality we have created in our minds. To think rationally requires time and patience and a bit of common sense. First instinct should be to not believe anything that is being told to us.
Further, we need to take action, get out of our comfort zones, do some hard stuff, progressively increasing the difficulty.
And once you start doing this repeatedly, you would become outcome independent. That is, you would put in your best effort but won’t be emotionally attached to the outcome. You would become addicted to work and improve yourself.
Then you would realise, you don’t have any room for anxiety, sadness, depression or whatever.
