Fear is only a state of Mind

The summer of discontent has started in earnest, it seems. The wandering mind seeks cool dark places to lie down and reminisce, meditate and commiserate with itself of all the confusions, inconsistencies, the questions that arise and are suppressed in one's mind..yet one always crops up. Everywhere i go , I see and feel guilt, self criticism and negativity. be it in our professional lives or personal lives, there is inability to even imagine good things happening, achievement of goals, and this fear, so much fear of others finding and ruining our chances, our success, our good fortune. This fear and insecurity gnaws at our society, controlling and dictating our actions. We hide our real thoughts, settling for platitudes instead in company, afraid to stand out, be different, to hear our voices rise above the usual buzz of familiar chit chat and time worn topics. It is perhaps the natural reaction to the history of this land. The city of Lahore has seen many devastations and carnages, and has learnt to adapt, to accept, to pay homage to whoever is at the zenith of power. The tendency is to do well for yourself and not even dream of sticking your neck out for what you believe in. If you believe in anything in the first place.Self preservation is supreme. I wonder sometimes, looking at the reactions of the people around me and the screaming silence, the utter lack of outrage at things that we should be outraged at. Despite generations of conditioning and nurture, some conscience remains in our hearts, this inability to condemn openly and failure to suppress decisively has turned us into a nation of self condemners, hating ourselves for our weakness but still going on at the same path. But the ties that bind our minds are only in our mind. Fear is only a state of mind. Now more than ever is the need to stand up for things higher than ourselves, which are right for the collective good. One has to sacrifice personal safety, comfort, and benefits for the collective good. But the strength to do so only comes from belief,from faith in what is right. Many times I feared to move forward on things which i believed were right, in the fear that what might happen, but the unknown is always more fearsome than going ahead and knowing whats out there. sometimes i faltered, sometimes i moved ahead, but moving ahead told me that most of my fears were only imagined. If I believed strongly in something, moving forward always found me vistas to reach my goal. Fear melted away when faced with willpower. I believe that the only way open to us collectively and individually, in order to lead a positive, happy and dignified life, is to go on the path of what we believe in, and fears, known and unknown, will melt away. Compromise wins us not peace but stalemate. Doing what we wish and believe in, is what brings happiness and peace.