As A Society, We Are Terrified Of Even The Most Benign Things, Its Time For Change
From fearing death itself from the sniffles, to not daring to step outside anymore, will the fear ever end?
Growing up, I took part in a lot of activities; whether that be football, basketball, karate, boxing and so on. Competition was and is a major part of not just my life, but across the world globally. Regardless of your opponent, two outcomes are certain, a win or a loss. If you got the crap kicked out of you during a sparring match, you pick yourself up and train harder. If you lost a game of football, you self-improve; whether that be defence, offence, dribbling etc. There is also the possibility of a draw, but we omit that from this example.
Perhaps I’m being biased towards the men here with some of the examples I gave. Although some of the points raised are useful to all people in general. In anything we do, there is a chance that we will either win or lose. Throughout human history, we have had no such issue accepting such outcomes. If a king failed to defend his land from invaders, he would take full accountability, if a man failed to harvest enough berries for the day, he would work twice as hard the next day.
For some reason today, we seem to fear bad outcomes. We don’t consider what we would do if the worst were to happen. Rather, we prefer to live to the ‘moment’. Things must always be good all of the time, everything must be perfect… Should things take a turn for the worst, there can’t be any risk taken whatsoever, we must hide away, cower in fear, and put all of our dependence on someone else to sort out the problem for us. We’ve reached the point, where we are terrified of being around people, scared of judged or criticised, how did we reach this point?
The common denominator here believes it or not is not fear in case you’re wondering, its ‘risk’. Partaking in a competition for instance incurs risk. There is a chance you will win, and there is also a chance you will lose. In today’s modern world we don’t want to take risk anymore, and anything involving risk is seen as bad; that must be avoided as much as possible.
Don’t believe me? Check out this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35696238. So let’s get this straight, because there is a ‘risk’ that such an injury would occur, a blanket ban of rugby seems appropriate. Banning rugby across all schools would take the risk of injury to 0. But then again, In juxtaposition, how often do the injuries occur? How bad are the injuries sustained? Do the downsides outweigh the benefits? These are all questions that one would think would be asked before making such proposals, but it’s a recurring trend we see in the present day.
The above is a classic example of certain individuals, not willing to expose the children to any risk whatsoever. Studies have shown that shielding your child from all forms of risk and harm damage them when they grow older, they are unprepared to deal with the real world, and any resulting failure will lead to them making completely irrational choices.
Another elephant that needs to be addressed in the room is Covid. The irrational fear that could drive hordes of people into their houses is unheard of. Never before in the history of the human race has garnered such a response, I myself wonder why fear has become so rampant. What happened to the days where we were willing to face hardship, to take risk, to face the unknown? Especially when the survival rate is so high .
Now in regards to Covid, whether or not mandates work is not the subject of the topic here. I am for the sake of this article referring to fear. After all, fear of catching the virus and dying is what initially drove people into their houses in the first place, not the mandates.
One could ponder as to how society lead itself to this point. I’m sure for those of you who read history a lot, there are several reasons we could point to here. One of them being the way society is set up today, never in the history of the human race have things been so convenient: Supermarkets, the ability to receive pensions (although this practice can be traced back centuries), state benefits, electricity etc.
A second reason is relating to the amount of programming we have today; whether it be the television, radio, or the internet. We are all exposed to some form of programming. However we choose to discern that information we receive is up to the individual. I’m not going to beat around the bush though, the media has played a big part of that programming, and we’ve all heard the phrases ‘politicians lie’ and ‘the media is not truthful’. Whatever you believe, you can’t deny the media plays a big part in propagating fear, benevolent or not.
The third reason (in conjunction to the first) is that because things are so convenient, people have become laid back. They don’t see a reason to consider what they will do if things go wrong, and if they do, they either fear the courage to confront it, or would rather fall back onto someone else (rather it be another person or entity) to sort out the problem for them.
I’m not arguing for or against socialism (if that’s what you are thinking) but I’m just pointing out based on not just my observations, but on other people’s observations as well, that this is a serious problem, if more and more people aren’t willing to face hardship, what’s going to happen when hardship arrives?
This appears to be a 1st world problem rather than a 3rd world problem. I mean if survival if your primary focus, I’m pretty sure you will strive to squash whatever weaknesses you have, if it means making it to live the next day; unless you would rather die of course, whereas in a 1st world environment, these problems are virtually non-existent due to convenience. Is convenience to blame for this trend of fear? Or am I missing another link I haven’t yet addressed.
Perhaps that missing link is in relation to current world events. The last major war globally was WW2. Since then, globally, we haven’t had that much major conflicts. Sure, we have had skirmishes amongst borders, proxy wars that are still ongoing, and some minor conflicts, but for the most part the world has moved more towards globalization. Gone were the days where a ruler invaded another territory to add to his or her own; mostly down to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
So it’s safe to say that the world has been relatively stable for the past 80 years. There are rumours of WW3, but countries like Russia and China are unlikely to risk mutually assured destruction. As such, society has benefited a lot from the lack of conflict; in terms of education, technological development, and wealth not being spent on war. The downsides though are also apparent “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
I feel we need a change here; we need to learn to adapt better to these situations. We can’t cower away in fear when the first sign of trouble comes. Granted, most people won’t see a need to change their lifestyle, as they have not been given a reason to, but I find that pretty depressing. Why wait until the situation arises where you are forced to make a change?
We can’t simply choose not to do something just because ‘risk’ presents itself. Whether you believe viruses cause disease or not . If you want to go outside, go outside and get some fresh air. If you want to invite your friends over, invite your invite your friends over, if you want to pursue a dangerous sport, pursue it. Life is too short to choose not to do something, just because there is a risk something could go wrong; whether that’s getting ill, getting injured etc. I don’t believe for a second anyone has a right to tell you not to take risk, whether it be your family, your friends, or a politician. If it requires switching off your telly and isolating yourself from the negativity that surrounds it, so be it; after all, life is about risks and choices, both ultimately are unavoidable.
