What do we fear? Why do we fear?....when it comes to change-
The fear of change itself:
As humans, change looms as one of our greatest fears. Yet it is constant and inevitable, and we exist entirely within a state of change. We are creatures of routine, and we are creatures who like to feel as though we have some manner of control over our own personal universes. When that feeling of control is tested, we resist — and can be thrown into a negative spiral of lost opportunities and missed happiness.
People fear change itself!They fear the “other” as represented by different cultures and physical appearance.They fear the unfamiliar. They fear the unconventional, and many other things. But, if you look at most of their fears, it all boils down to fear of change. Changes in demographics, change in ascendancy, change in majority, change in government.
Many,many people just flat don’t like change, especially those currently in ascendancy.We fear change because we can’t anticipate the outcome.
However, staying put can be riskier than changing. Whether it’s in your career or a relationship, you risk being left behind if you don’t continue to grow.
The paradox is that although we reject uncertainty, we have the skills to change and evolve. Fear is an emotion that gets in the way,we lose clarity about our potential. Our fear of change is based on stories—both real and the imagined ones we tell ourselves. We narrate our lives as if they are out of our control—we feel as we are playing a part someone else wrote for us.
The fear of losing social support.
For me,I think it wasn’t the language, opposable thumb or bipedal walk that served as the most important factor in setting humans apart from other animals,it was the ability to create large groups with a single unifying idea.
Most natural groups of other animals can't exceed 150–200 individuals because they don't have a common unifying idea. Although every chimpanzee wants food and sex but that's more of a competitive factor than an amalgamating force.
Now consider this in humans.
A school, a company, a state, a nation. All these are examples of one unifying concept.One of the major reasons people fear change is that shifting from the status quo may result in losing this unifying idea(whatever it may be) or losing that unity and support from other humans.
The fear of religion
It takes insane amount of guts to be willing to swim against this waves in an orthodox pool of society. Being a maverick isn't possible without being okay to be a lone wolf because at some point or other, your rigid beliefs would be looked down upon by the society. Social downcast is always a possibility. And then begins the toughest part- to not feel lonely.
Religion is the only unmatchable force that unites people like anything. The bloodshed, the rivalry, the giving birth to terrorism, millions of human lives have been lost in chase of something not even palpable.
It is believed that biological evolution has slackened in pace and the one thing that has provided considerable impetus to Homo sapiens was cultural evolution. Culture made it easy to pass the learnings down the generation and even unite into larger groups.
Fear of losing/Failure
We can experience failure in our expectations, our goals, and even our romantic lives. It’s a permeating sort of defeat that runs deep and strong, and it can happen to anyone at any point or stage of their lives or careers. For this reason, millions of people around the globe suffer from a crippling and paralyzing fear of failure, and fear of letting both themselves and their loved ones down.
The fear of what if I fail the fear of what if I'll be not good at what I do the fear of taking the risk because of this 7 lettered word.
I have heard people saying that they didn't even try certain things or let's say didn't experiment few things because of this fear.
When a person has nothing to lose, then the probability of that person suffering from fear would be negligible. (This is an ideal case and it doesn't exist in reality)
Interestingly, a certain amount of Fear also helps a person to remain alert and take informed decisions.
To cite an example
It is good to have a slight quotient of fear while driving a car on a High altitude as shown in the reference Picture.The fear factor in you will demotivate you from taking any risk while driving a car on a dangerous road and making you to be more careful.
Therefore, we can conclude that, Fear is a necessary evil for the survival of humanity.
The fear of being judged by others
The fear of being judged by others as 'not being good enough’ or as if something were wrong and they look out of place, not acting “adult enough",this is why so many parents don't or won't make themselves have fun in public with their kids, doing something outrageous..(like chasing them all over the grocery store in an electric cart) for fear that another parent might see them and disapprove.
We all want to be liked, but that desire to be liked can extend all the way into a fear of being judged. Pushing ourselves to the edge of becoming someone else, or dampening our true selves entirely, is one of the worst side effects of a fear of being judged gone too far.
Fear of the Unknown
Fear of the unknown is very common for humans and almost all other animals. When I sometimes go for my five mile walk,I alternate several routes and the times I go so I often run into new and different people and creatures. I always calmly let the animals look me over and smell me and try not to startle them. Now I have a lot of animals that know me and let me pet them. Humans, being animals, do the same thing in various different ways.
Let me walk you through a quick example. Suppose you are alone in your house at midnight and you hear a sharp clanking sound in the veranda outside. What thoughts engulf you immediately? Is it a thief? Is it a friend playing pranks on me? Or worse, is it a ghost? Of course your rational mind knows there’s nothing like ghosts, but nonetheless a strange uneasy feeling impinges you in cold blood.
Now that feeling is called Fear. Fear of the Unknown.
Why did you fear? Because you didn’t know what the heck was transpiring outside the door!
You muster up your courage and you go out and a puny little dog is sitting at the corner. You call yourself stupid and sigh; relief courses through your body, almost like offloading a heavy burden.
Why did this happen? Why did you sigh, why did you felt relieved? Because now your mind registered something tangible. And as soon as this happened, it concluded there wasn’t anything harmful and the resultant hormones that were so tightly jammed up because of your uneasiness were released in your body and hence the relief.
Why do you fear while watching horror movies? Because its a horror movie, right, we are supposed to fear! Wrong. There’s a reason why directors of horror movies choose to just play around in the first half. Because the fear of the unknown grabs the viewer’s mind when the doors open up on their own, when windows rattle, when curtains ripple. But as soon as you see the face of the ghost (the point where unknown is not unknown anymore), you don’t fear as much and it even feels somewhat comedic.
We fear because the future is unknown to us. Why? Because the result is unknown at that point. And the mind fears the unknown, it’s just wired that way. If we had already known the result, we won’t fear it as much as we do now, despite knowing that it’s negative. What we don’t know terrifies us more than what we do know.