THE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN

 

 Among the more common fears, the fear of the unknown is without doubt the most widespread but, have you ever wondered why we are so scared by the unknown?

 

Firstly, let's define the unknown: the unknown could be a person or a car we haven't seen before in our neighbourhood; a sound heard in the dark; a new experience we are going to face, like the first day of a new job, rather than the first date with a girl (or a boy). So, trying to define the unknown is difficult, because it may include so many aspects of our lives. But I would like you to notice something: it isn't important if the unknown is a good or a bad thing, an very important or a meaningless event: if we don't know what is going to happen, we feel scared, we feel anxious, and very often part of our mind suggests to shy away from the situation.

 

There are three main causes for this kind of fear.

 

1) We love to stay in our comfort zone, or better, our mind loves the comfort zone. The comfort zone is that side of the world we know perfectly, where we know what will happen, or at least we can image it.  Actually,  for our mind it's the optimal situation, because it can stop working, to watch out, to store information. It can use the automatic reactions, experience, previous solutions. It's like when we cook the same dish because we have cooked it so many times.

But this attitude only explains the fear of the new experiences. Hence, let's move to the second point.

  

2) We want to have everything under control, we want to be conscious of everything happening around us. You could think that it is similar to point one, and partly it is. But we have changed the focus, by the fear to move to a new situation, to the necessity to control the present one. Someone could think that only very axious people have this necessity, but everyone is scared by an  unknown sound, or, more simply, everyone prefers not stay alone in a house. Do you know why? We are calmer if someone is careful with us.

 

 

 

3) Prejudice. When we don't know something (or someone) we base our ideas on the things we heard from someone else, or on the abstract idea of that thing. So, we don't produce a judgement, but a prejudice, because we judge before (For the same reason,  we may be disappointed, but that’s a different topic). 

 

 The "solution" to overcome this fear could be the sentence of  American philosopher Henry David Thoureau: "You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment." That means we should leave our prejudices behind, face every situation and enjoy the moment in order to grow as human beings. I think it could be the way not only to overcome the fear of the unknown, but also the way to be really free and happy.

JACO, 5sc