FEAR OF BEING JUDGED

What is fear?

Fear is an emotion induced by perceived danger or threat, which causes physiological and ultimately behavioural changes. After delving a bit more into the Bhagavad Gita, I realised a few very important things on fear and how this has had a devastating effect in our corporate and personal lives.

Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will. This holds true for every aspect of our lives and will continue to do so if not overcome by good practices.

In the heart of ours, fear has built its own dynasty. And the fear primarily stems from two most important things which actually matter to today's human beings: (1) Desire to have something, and (2) Losing something you are attached to. And this is the reason why everyone in this world feels that fear is existential naturally in our body. But has anyone ever thought that the situations or things which give rise to fear are the actual reasons for the fear that you carry? Fear is an innate part of us but do understand that it's all imaginary and has got nothing to do with reality.

How does this fear lead to failures in your corporate or personal life?

I asked this question to myself a lot of times this last week before penning down my thoughts here. Was there anything that I wanted to do but couldn't do in life because of family pressure or peer pressure or boss pressure? Would I have been in a better state of my life if I had followed my heart during those moments? Hmmm... not sure. Let me give you an example from both the perspectives:

Personal Life and the Fear of being Judged

I was a mere 10 year old kid when I went to play cricket with people at least twice my age. I watched cricket with my dad on those old black n white TVs even if the match was played at wee hours of the day. I always wanted to be like the Little Master. Those were my dreams. But my father who comes from a farmer's family, rose to what he was that day completely on his own, had his own reservations and fears. What's the future of cricket? Who will give a job to my son if he fails to make it to the state team? What will happen to his future because he won't be there with me forever? All these questions and my dreams just stayed as dreams. I was asked to study from the very beginning and see if I could become an engineer or doctor and crack a government job.

The fear I talked about earlier exactly proves again these: my father had a desire of me becoming an engineer and doctor and this fear of him stopped me from playing cricket professionally and he was too attached to me and couldn't afford to lose me at any point of life. My father had the fear of being judged by the society as well. What would his friend tell about me? Will he be judged as an unsuccessful father?

Corporate Life and the Fear of being Judged

I was super pumped when I switched jobs. I was given a sense of responsibility by my new organisation and I was there to build on it. I was married by that time and due to my increased salary, I dared to buy a property in Hyderabad, India. A proud moment, right? My wife was happy as she headed to her new home. My parents were happy because what my dad accomplished at age of 55, I did it at 32. Everyone was super pumped. But the fear that was running through my mind kept me at bay all the times. What if something unforeseen happens and the company closes down? What if I don't perform and lose my job? What if I don't have a balanced work and personal life? And many other such questions. And to top all these, what will my managers and peers think on the way I work? Ahhhh! Too much load at a time.

And slowly things started to take a toll on me. I always felt someone is judging me somewhere on the way I talk to people, on the way I walk around the bays at work, on the way I sit in the meetings. All these things made me jittery but I started to calm down myself and stop thinking about those.

But the fear of all the above probably didn't bring out the best in me. I changed myself for the organisation that I was working for. I felt as if it wasn't me but somebody else at work. Everyday I went to office with a fear of what am I going to hear today. And in today's corporate world, falling prey to corporate bully is easy if you have these kind of fears in mind.

Most of the times I didn't take any action because I was scared of being judged. Most of the times I didn't express because of the fear of losing my work to someone else or losing the job itself. Fear kills.

But how to overcome all of these so-called fear?

If you go and ask yourself, is there even a way to overcome all of these, the immediate answer would be NO. And there's a reason for it- we all have desires and attachments in and with life. So the very fact that fear will reside in us is true. But that doesn't mean we can't get rid of.

The more you live in your mind and not with your life, it germinates fear. Your fear is about something non-existential and thus imaginary. Our mind has two important components- memory and imagination. And if you kind of think, both of them are imaginary as they don't exist in reality. Let's take two most relevant scenarios to understand this:

• Fear of losing job: I must say this is the biggest threat to mankind right now post this pandemic. But does that mean you work without your conscience? Will you do something wrong just because your boss wants you to do? But this fear will always remain in our heads. Let's be practical: we have a house and family to take care of and thus can't afford to lose jobs. Why today India isn't a tech giant but a house to cheap labour? It's because of the leaders that we have produced over the years. It's because of the upward management policy that they are following and will continue to follow over the years. We will always have great businessmen but where are the innovators. Thanks to the God, we are starting to see a spurge in the homemade startups in India now and this just might change the perception altogether.
• Fear of asking for your worth: The moment a recruiting HR/manager knows that the candidate is case of layoff during this pandemic, your position and pay goes down a level naturally. And what kind of fear generates in our minds? Already the situation is bad, cashflow isn't there, let me take up this job and sustain my livelihood. We don't bother to ask that we should get at least what we were getting earlier. Come out of that zone and dare to ask the question to the recruiter on a positive note and see if you can go ahead and negotiate this.

Before I end this really long article, I would like to reiterate this fact and make sure it reverberates in your minds every time you've a fear in you:

"Live your life because you are not here for anyone else. Do not ever let the fear of being judged, rejected or disliked stop you from being yourself. When you truly don't care what anyone thinks of you, you've reached a dangerously awesome level of freedom."