It's amazing how fear can be both, harmful and helpful for us. Fear can make us do terrible things, but it is also fear that prevents us from doing terrible things. It simply depends on which one of your fears is more powerful. Keep reading to find out how.
Consider a certain Person A. They are poor, unemployed, and starving. They are driven by the fear of dying. They would not think twice before stealing, or killing someone, or engaging themselves in other illegal/unethical activities if it provides them food or money.
Here, Person A's fear of dying overpowered their fear of law. All that they can see right now is a way of surviving, not caring if they are doing so at someone else's cost. They do not fear the police, or Karma, or God.
This is where fear is our foe. It makes us feel so helpless that we are unable to see past this veil of darkness, unable to listen to our conscience.
Now consider Person B. They are popular and well-respected in the society they live in, and they're quite proud of it. One time, someone threatened to ruin their fine reputation, since Person B weren't as a fine person as everyone thinks they are. So their fear of losing this reputation drove them to hurt that person. But, here they are faced with another fear, of the law, and God. This fear overpowered their fear of loss of "respect", and thus prevented them from hurting someone.
Another example of this “good” fear is when all of us feared being infected with the coronavirus for at least the first half of 2020.
Yet another example is when we stop procrastinating and start working hard, for we fear failure and humiliation.
I don't think so. You see, the idea of wrong and right, good and bad, ethical and unethical, etc., is not the same for everyone. This is why when faced with the choice between what is right and easy, people usually go for the latter because the former requires courage.
Thus, people prefer handing the wheel to fears. We are taught to fear God and Karma, and police and law. All the places reserved for us in Hell, curses in the afterlife, facing the Hall of Judgement in the Underworld, etc., were tools to produce fears that will help us make the right choices.
Conscience. Yeah, it's that simple. Listen to your conscience. Be brave and choose the right path. Answer the following questions to yourself according to what your conscience says:
1. If you were Person A, would you rather hurt someone innocent, or work harder to get a job?
2. If you were Person B, would you rather hurt that person and lie to save your image, or accept your mistake?
Can you identify the right and easy paths here? You must have realized that the right path requires courage, whereas the easy path isn't necessarily right.
So next time when you make a decision, no matter how minor it is, try to not let your fears drive you. We all have to be brave enough to do that
