To understand is to conquer fear || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2012)

Question: Sir, I am afraid of making decisions. I depend on others for my decisions. Please help me on this.

Shri Prashant: Can one really be afraid of making a decision? We are actually afraid that the decision will prove to be ‘wrong’. Is it the decision-making that terrifies us or the thought that my decision may turn out to be wrong?

Let’s look at ourselves. My real fear is that ‘I do not know what is right and wrong. Because all my life I have lived according to the criterion provided by others. I have no understanding of how to live intelligently and how to decide for myself. Can I really make a decision about something without really understanding it? And if I take such a decision then it is obvious that I would be afraid. I do not understand and yet I am deciding, so anything can happen. Like the roll of a dice or the toss of a coin, it is totally a random happening. Obviously, I am going to be afraid. When I really know, do I have the reason to be afraid?’

Another reason that we feel afraid in decision making is that we feel accountable, we feel a certain obligation, we feel that if our decision is wrong, what answers we will provide to others? We are not really afraid of the event as such. Rather, we are afraid that what kind of face will we show to others? Whichever fear we pick up, we discover that the fear is always linked to the other. Are we coming closer to it? Fear is never really about myself. Fear is always about somebody else. Even when I think that I am afraid about myself, I am actually afraid about losing something external provided by the other – like identities, respectability, acceptance, care etc., or certificates, or privileges and luxuries.