What Do We Fear, Why Do We Fear?

about 3 years ago (Edited)

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog at this hour. The fear of change is a type of fear that is experienced by everyone at different phases of our lives and it simply have to do with the panic of the unknown. In other words, we fear change because we are unsure of what the new step, phase or place we are moving to will be like. Change is very scary especially when a person is not in total control of the situation. Well, sit back, relax and enjoy all that I have packaged for your reading pleasure.

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A person is not in total control of a change, which makes it more scary, if the change is prompted by forces that are beyond control such as a superior in the office, natural disasters, accidents, etc. While, the fear of change may not be as tense when we decide to activate a change in our life such as quitting a job, moving to a new home, stopping a bad lifestyle, changing looks etc.

Generally, as human beings we are programmed to always enjoy being in our comfort zone rather than embracing change. We like to live a routine kind of life, where we can easily predict what will happen next. We have less anxiety when we can easily predict what to expect next and when life is not predictable, we begin to worry ourselves, different thoughts will start flowing through our minds which increase the stress and anxiety level.

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The fear of change could be experienced in different ways in the life of a person. You're probably afraid of change when you are convinced that a situation is not favorable for you, yet you refuse to create a change. For instance, you find yourself in an abusive relationship or marriage where your partner assaults you everyday, yet you do not want to leave. Or you're not happy with your job due to the risk associated with it - you close very late, it's affecting other aspects of your life - but you seem to be stuck. There are some people who are scared of what will happen if they fail to do something they normally do every day. This is equally a fear of change of the unknown. In some persons, they show they are afraid by sweating, shivering, nodding of heads and so on.

About three years ago, I battled with the fear of change for a long time in respect to relocating from my current location (then) to a new one. I was posted from the South-Western part of Nigeria, Osun State to be precise to the North Central, Abuja for my National Youth Service programme. All my life I have been in the West from Primary to Secondary and Tertiary education, so it was a challenge for me to travel for about 14 hours to a new location where I'm not familiar with.

sourceAfter so much deliberations and consultations with myself and a good friend of mine, I had to make the decision to take up the challenge. The decision was easy to make for me after I spoke to someone about it. He advised me and made me understand that change is constant in life and we must always be ready to embrace it.

During that period, a lot was running through my head - "How do I do this?", "How do I do that?", "What if...."?. But on the long run, I got answers to all my questions through actions. We often ask so many questions about the unknown when we're not actually making any move towards solving them. It is action that will gradually unravel the situation and in no time the supposed fear will vanish into the thin air.

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Change is constant. Do not close the doors to new possibilities in your life due to the fear of change. Fear of change tries to shut us off from enjoying the bliss and glamor that change could actually offer by displaying uncertainties in our face. Wipe off these uncertainties and welcome yourself to a phase of endless possibilities.

All contents are originally written by me, @williams-owb

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Williams Oluseyi is a Linguist by discipline from one Africa's Most Prestigious Citadel of Learning, Obafemi Awolowo University. He developed interest for blogging at very early stage which motivated him to study English Language in College. He is a prolific writer, an inquisitive and judicious reader, to say the least. To get his daily bread, he is currently working in a Logistics company in Nigeria.