Disruption + Uncertainty = Fear

If you have watched terror movies, you probably have noticed there are several types of fear. The fear of gruesome scenes or wild animals, maybe the fear of masked people or a contagious illness is terrible enough to get you paralyzed.

But what about the fear that does not come from a movie: the fear of losing a job, getting sick, being alone and lonely… It is the modern urban fear that keeps people awoken at night and does not allow them to have a healthy normal life.

That fear comes from a not so sweet formula:

Disruption + Uncertainty = Fear

It means we are afraid when our normal life is interrupted in its core, when the paradigm we are living is broken. Disruption is being experienced right now worldwide and it is not fun; it is requiring lots of resilience by most people, some Netflix and Zoom by others… An image you can use to understand disruption is to think of a ladder you are climbing normally until you reach a point where the steps vanished and you are unable to reach the other side, your destination.

Disruption paralyses the person because of its absurdity or unexpected (and unwanted) emergence. In the case of a human stairs it is however different than the former example, as there is no way to go back in time and escape from it; you can stay stuck or you would have to build the steps yourself, probably with the help of others.

Now imagine that not only the steps went missing; when you look further to the place where you were heading to, it also went missing! Uncertainty is prevailing, forcing people to live the day-by-day and not planning too far ahead.

It is not something new of course as any company, football team or professional is used to live on uncertainty, but the modern uncertainty – Will I still work there? Will my children be able to have their own house? Will we be married with the same person in five years? – joined by disruption generates a very deep ingrained fear.

Can we overcome this type of fear? We can’t fight disruption as it is often out of our control, but we can control the effect of uncertainty. And the solution is very simple: certainty.

Just have a few things clear in your life and you will feel you are a surfer in the waves of life. These are a few powerful questions that may help you to have a sense of what is happening in your life, a sense of who you really are and your beautiful purpose:

• Who am I?
• Why am I doing what I am doing?
• What is the best of me and how to share it with others?
• Where am I heading to and how I am building it day by day?

Whenever you feel uncertainty taking over you, just stop for a moment and ask yourself those questions. Let the answer comes into your mind like a light during a dark night.

Remember: even a small candle can break the darkness.