Fear!

People who know me will say that I always try to push the envelope with my fears. I am a firm believer in the adage that if you face your fears, it will only make you grow stronger. There is in fact a poster on my office wall that says "Always do what you are afraid to do".

This adage has led me to do many things that normally I would have never done - Bungee Jumping, Sky Diving, Everest Base Camp Trek, Scary rides etc - and I am always on a lookout for the next big adventure to push the limit and overcome the fear.

All the above activities and my bravado are all limited to (what I now call) Physical Fear. A fear associated with bodily harm - I will get hurt if this adventure fails and goes the wrong way. I've learnt that this Physical Fear can be controlled by calming the mind, facing the fear and living the moment. A simple mental image of the fun and rush that you will feel during the experience and the pride that you will feel when you finish the adventure helps you to enjoy the adventure and overcome the fear. I've learnt that the key is to have an image of the completed adventure and aim towards that.

Over the last few days, however, I have come to realise that there is another kind of fear that is much stronger and much more difficult to overcome.

Events across the last few weeks have made me realise the power of Emotional Fear. The fear in your mind that is associated with the fear of loss.  Emotional Fear is the fear that is completely in your mind pertaining to events and issues that are completely out of your control and have no physical connotations. You cannot associate it with a physical way of overcoming it. A fear so deep seated that you don't want to imagine the end image or a fear associated with an end image so frightening that you don't want to face it. An image that you don't want to accept and a fear that it might come true. 

I'm struggling with this Emotional Fear over the last few weeks with a few major events that made me face the prospect of loss of a loved one. The emotional fear was also associated with the fear of inaction - if we didn't take any concrete action, then we could loose the loved one and not be remembered. An intense need to take action continuously while the reality might be to let things play itself out. We struggled with the 'inaction fear' recently and things worked out well for us. But the fear was always around the corner of what if it would not work out. I'm struggling with another one in that realm.

While I've come to realise that I have the ability to easily understand and overcome Physical Fear, the dragon of Emotional Fear scares me and I have yet to find a way to tame that dragon. Physical Fear is temporary and can be overcome in minutes. Emotional Fear needs a lot of time to overcome but giving it time only seems to make the dragon more powerful and all consuming.

How do you overcome Emotional Fear?

Thinkgifting or Thingifting?

I read this blog post of mine recently on "Value perception of a Gift" and started thinking about all the gifts that I had received over a period of time from all my friends and acquaintances. Like all gifts in life, some were gifted because it was an occasion and something had to be given and some were gifted after a lot of effort and thought. While my earlier post talked about the perception that the giftee gets on the gift and how the gifter feels, I started thinking about why does one put an effort into a gift? What is the subliminal message one wants to send with a gift? Or is there even one?

Gifts can be classified into two segments:

• THINGIFTING or giving something as a gift picked off the shelf without much thought process because you have been invited to an occasion or because you didn't have time or because you should give a gift. 
• AND
• THINKGIFTING or giving something as a gift after putting in a lot of thought and effort. This could be something unique that you believe you have created for that person. Something that you believe the person will like and love. Or even something that you thought is very unique for the person.

For most of the occasions and people that we know, we do Thingifting. We pick up gifts as we go to the occasion, stopping over at a store so that we don't have to spend too much effort.  The idea is to pick up something that we believe will be apt for the occasion so that the person feels good about it. There isn't much thought given to what we are buying with budget probably being the main concern for the gift. We spend just as much as we attach a value to that person - should the gift be worth Rs. 1000/- or Rs. 2000/-? What about buying something thats Rs. 5000/- for that person? Is he/she worth that much spend? These are some of the questions that we go through in our mind. Let me clarify, there is nothing wrong in that and is a perfectly normal discussion. I believe that sub-consciously, though, you are evaluating the importance of that person in your life and deciding to put in the required time, money and effort into gifting something to the person.

For the more or most important people in your life, though, you would do Thinkgifting. You would spend time, thought and energy into the right gift for the person. Money becomes a secondary consideration in the initiative. The gift could be a simple thing costing hardly anything at all but something that you have maybe trolled the net, found a unique thing and decided to get it made for the person. It could be something very expensive just because you know that it will bring joy to the person. Or maybe something that you will spend time to get made for the person exclusively and unique to the person. If you are doing Thinkgifting for someone, then sub-consciously you have attached a priceless value to the person in your life.

Are there exceptions to this generic statement? Of course, there could be. I am sure someone who never gifts anything to anyone but gives you a gift, however simple and quick it may have been, is probably doing Thinkgifting from their end. 

Thingifting and Thinkgifting can also be a great way for you to find out how much you need the person and how much the person values you. If someone has been doing Thinkgifting for you for a few years, then hold on to that person because he/she puts tremendous value on you.

I do Thinkgifting for two people in my life. How many people do you do Thinkgifting for?