The things we fear the most

Oct 01, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – I told the Guru about a Tik Tok video I had seen of a very wealthy man who had done something that, at first, seemed rather strange. He had spent much of his life building wealth. He had a comfortable home, good food, security and all the things that money can provide.

Yet he had identified the thing he feared most. Poverty. So he decided not merely to think about poverty. He would instead deliberately experience, in a small way, the thing he feared. Every week, he would sleep on a hard floor. He would eat very simple meals, choosing some of the cheapest food available. He would strip away the comforts that had become normal to him and remind himself that he could live without them.

I asked the Guru: “Isn’t that a strange thing to do? Why would a rich man voluntarily make himself uncomfortable?”

The Guru smiled.

“No,” he said. “It is not strange at all. He has understood that fear becomes larger when we keep it in our imagination.”

“How so?”

“Because the mind is a wonderful storyteller,” the Guru replied. “Give it an unknown danger and it will write the worst possible ending.”

He paused. “Think about the things people fear. Flying. Public speaking. Failure. Losing a job. Growing old. Being alone. Illness. Rejection. Poverty. Death. Often, the fear is not caused only by the thing itself. It is caused by the picture we have created of it.”

“So what should we do?”

“Get closer to the fear.”

I looked at him.

“Closer?”

“Yes. Carefully, deliberately and sensibly. If you are afraid of speaking in public, speak to three people. Then ten. Then a small group. If you fear being alone, spend some quiet time alone instead of constantly filling the silence with your phone, television or other people. If you fear failure, attempt something where failure is possible.”

He leaned forward. “Fear grows in avoidance. Courage grows through contact.”

I thought about the wealthy man. “So was he training himself to become poor?”

“No,” said the Guru. “He was training himself not to be controlled by the fear of poverty.”

The Guru explained that there is another benefit to deliberately experiencing a little discomfort. “We become prisoners of our comforts without realizing it. The more comforts we have, the more we can become afraid of losing them.”

A soft bed becomes something we cannot imagine living without. A particular standard of food becomes an expectation. A certain lifestyle becomes a necessity. Then the thought of losing any of it becomes frightening. “The rich man,” the Guru said, “was reminding himself that his possessions were conveniences, not his identity.”

“But surely,” I said, “there is a danger in deliberately making ourselves uncomfortable?”

“Of course. Courage is not foolishness. You do not overcome a fear of drowning by jumping into deep water without knowing how to swim. You learn to swim. You enter gradually. You increase your ability while reducing your fear.”

Then the Guru said something I found even more important. “Do not confuse overcoming fear with eliminating fear.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You may always feel fear. Courage does not mean that fear disappears. Courage means that fear no longer gets to make every decision for you.”

The Guru said there was another question we should ask whenever we are afraid: What exactly am I afraid of?

Sometimes the answer is not obvious. A person may say he is afraid of losing his job. But perhaps what he really fears is losing his status. Another may say he fears growing old. Perhaps what he fears is becoming irrelevant. Someone may fear being alone. Perhaps what he fears is discovering that he does not know how to live comfortably with himself. Someone may fear poverty. Perhaps beneath that fear is the belief that without money he will have no dignity, no security or no worth.

“Name the real fear,” the Guru said. “It is difficult to fight an enemy you have not identified.”

Then he offered a simple exercise. “Every time you find yourself afraid, write down three things. First: What am I afraid will happen? Second: What is actually within my control? Third: What small thing can I do today to become less afraid?”

“Small thing?”

“Always begin small. Fear is not usually conquered in one heroic act. It is weakened by a series of ordinary acts.”

He gave an example. “If you fear poverty, learn to live occasionally with less. If you fear dependence, learn some practical skills. If you fear failure, deliberately attempt something difficult. If you fear rejection, allow yourself to hear ‘no’ without treating it as a judgment on your worth.”

Then he smiled. “And sometimes,” he said, “do something simply because it is uncomfortable.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to teach yourself an important lesson: I can be uncomfortable and still be all right.”

Perhaps that is what the wealthy man in the video was really learning. He was not learning how to be poor. He was learning that he could sleep on a hard floor and wake up the next morning. He could eat a cheap meal and discover that hunger did not destroy him. He could live for a while without his usual comforts and realize that his comforts were not the same thing as his life.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• fear, guru, Peeping Tom, poverty

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