Fear of the Unknown

When I was working in India in the late 2008 the H1N1 Flu kept spreading. People were trying to get their hands on the N95 masks for their family. People used to store the phone numbers of various hospitals where they screen for H1N1 symptoms. Many were even contemplating to take Tamiflu tablets so that they are protected.

In January of 2012, when Nigeria went on strike as a protest against the petrol price hike, I observed that everyone was buying petrol as though there is no tomorrow! There were serpentine queues outside the filling stations including people with large jerry cans and buying petrol at outrageous prices.

Why do we do this?

Fear is a factor of risk and is predominantly driven by our perception of risk. As human beings, we tend to overreact when gripped by fear. That is, we consider something more risky than it actually is.

The recession which is a totally new experience for many of us has created a similar fear. The perceived risk here being - we may lose our job. Every economic news (be it national, international or organization) is analysed for its impact on our job at every possible opportunity. Our daily routine gets paralysed and we become a victim of the “Fear of the Unknown”.

Your Action

Resist your temptation to actively search for negative news or draw unwanted inferences from routine information.  Avoid those coffee table discussions in your office that invariably steers towards dip in sales in your organization, attrition, policy changes and how your job is on the chopping block etc. that would impact you negatively.