Fear is Big Business

If all you want is security, you may become more afraid of life than death.

- James F. Byrnes, American statesman. 

Last week, I took my car in for service to the dealer. I was prepared for the usual - oil change, tire rotation and maybe some usual maintenance checklist items. Upon completion of my check-in, I was given a pamphlet that had information about an "Automatic Transmission fluid flushing service". Usually, I would just toss it out into the trash can, but this one had a lot of photos and detail about the service. It had photos about how the fluid looked at various stages of the car's life. I eagerly looked up the one closest to the miles my car had (around 55,000) and it looked bad - I mean really bad. Though the photo was a little magnified, I instantly felt scared about carrying around that much filth in my car, so I raced back to the service personnel and requested him to add the service to the list of repairs.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

 - Marie Curie, Renowned physicist and chemist.

I was feeling a big sense of clean and sparkle (reminded me of the "after flush" photo in the pamphlet) while driving back and also a sense of accomplishment. Once I was home, I started to read the literature about the transmission flush in more detail and it was then that I read the fine print - "Pictures assume that you have never had an ATF flush".  Suddenly, I was dwarfed all by the world around me. The ATF flush had been done previously for my car - in fact for all the major services. Oh no, I had been duped - by my fear of bad mojo happening to my car. After a while, I redeemed myself from that shame and started thinking - how many decisions do we make as a result of fear? How many times have we been influenced by our fears to act differently than we would otherwise?

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. 

 - Eric Hoffer, American social writer.

Have our career decisions been made out of the fear of trying something we really wanted? How about the purchase of our assets? How about decisions that involved starting a family and having a home? These may be questions that require deep thought in order to find answers. We could get a clue of our thought process by treading into less murkier waters. Let us think about the train of thought that goes into decisions that we take daily. What do we think about when we decide on buying a battery? Will this commercial (link) influence us to buy the batterythat is  advertised? Will this ad (link) affect our way of thinking about the car we want? Or will this ad (link) make us worry more about how secure our home is? We have seen political ads that spark fear to influence the way we vote. It has also been used to shape policy changes (link) - since research proves that fear trumps over all the other urges to weigh pros and cons of public policy.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

 - Edmund Burke, British political writer.

We may be influenced by fear more than we think. Think of all the additional insurance purchases we have made, those "peace mind" warranties and "extended travel assurance" policies we have signed up for. What about those "high risk" career changes and the fear of repercussions from your boss that is preventing you to say what is on your mind? 

Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.

 - Jack Lemmon, American actor.

It can be argued that many of these can be attributed to be "playing safe" rather than being scared. Everyone has a self proven way of making their decisions. In my opinion, it would be in our best interests to think before making a decision ( big or small) , to face our fears, weigh its rationality and then  - act on it. Who knows, analyzing our fear may morph into courage and do wonders for us.

Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain.

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American  poet, essayist and lecturer.

Stay fearless, my friends  - and be on the lookout for people with fear shots heading your way.