From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 49

CHAPTER FIVE
Fear Kills: Grief Takes Life
F
ear, perhaps, is the worst enemy of happiness; in extreme cases, it has the license to kill. As the world is marching ahead, as the means of communication are getting more potent than ever before, as the individual is getting involved in more and more activities, the scope and intensity of fear that we experience each day of our lives is increasing. Try to figure out a day, after your childhood days, which you have been able to spend without a tinge of fear tarnishing your natural happiness. There is the fear of failure, theft, gun, terrorist, accident, earthquake, flood, drought, tsunami, and so on. There is the fear of police, company law, central excise, labour law, income tax and sales tax. Future itself has become one big cause of fear - future health, security, relationships, old age, and, ultimately, death - termed appropriately as the fear of the unknown. We do not stop at thinking about possible mishaps till we are alive; we also entertain the fear of surety of our kin after our death. Even God has become an object of fear rather than of love and devotion. The list is indicative, not exhaustive.
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Fear is the creature of ignorance and the cause and forerunner
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