Page 1 - We Need To Learn To Overcome Fear, TOI, 13.09.16
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9/19/2016
The Times of India
Title : the speaking tree We Need To Learn To Overcome Fear
Author : Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Location :
Article Date : 09/13/2016
Fear is a common problem. What is fear? According to the dictionary, it is a feeling of distress, apprehension, or
alarm caused by a sense of impending danger. To overcome fear, some counseling experts prescribe certain
techniques which are physical in nature. Fear, however, being a problem of the mind, is unlikely to be allayed by
physical solutions.
As a rational animal, human beings can readily accept only that kind of answer which addresses reason. So, the
right way to proceed is to identify the cause of fear and then eradicate it by reasoning. If one's mind can reason
things out, it can surely succeed in overcoming fear.
It is a common experience to arrive at the railway station and find that your train is late. If there is a rational
cause for its lateness, you will have no anxiety about it. But if the reason for the train being late is not known,
you will become apprehensive. This example illustrates that the only way to solve the problem of fear is to
reason it out.
I should like to share a personal experience which has some relevance here. I am a born perfectionist. That is
why i have always wanted things to be in impeccable order. Whenever i have found things not to be in perfect
order, i have become very troubled and distressed.This anxiety increased to such a great extent during my
childhood that i wrote a poem on it. The following is one of its verses: `Zindagani hai ke ya khwab koi
vehshatnaak' Life seems to me to be a dreadful dream.
I have read and thought a lot about this subject. It is obvious that this is a common problem for every man and
woman. But, in this world, according to the law of nature, man has to live with contradictions. That is, man is
himself a perfectionist, while the world itself is far from perfect. Things will frequently be seen not to be in
perfect order. After this dis covery, i developed a realistic approach to life. `Maturity is the ability to live with
things we cannot change.' Bearing this in mind, i was able to rationalise the issue and live with a tensionfree
mind.
Although fear seems to be external, in reality it is within one's own mind. Often when people enter a dark room,
they think that some deadly animal is crawling across the floor. But when they switch on the light, they realise
that there was nothing of the sort in the room. It had only been a figment of their imagination. Therefore, the
solution to the problem of fear cannot be found outside oneself, but has to be managed at the level of one's own
mind.
Fear is apparently a negative experience, but there is also a positive aspect to it. That is, fear is like an
intellectual earthquake for our minds.It stimulates intellectual activity , which leads to creative thinking. In this
sense, fear has an important role to play in our lives.
Fear is an integral part of life. It keeps one's mind alive. Without fear, one risks descending into a state of
intellectual stagnation. We have, therefore, only one option before us, and that is, to control our minds so that we
may regard fear as a positive rather than a negative phenomenon.
Follow Maulana Wahiduddin Khan at speakingtree.in and post your comments there.
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