Neophobia: Fear of New things

Fear is something that might hinder your advances onto the next stage, be it anything, career, relationship, etc. Fear can be of many types, most of which have a cure. But there is one type of fear that dominates all other and, practically, has no cure at all. The Fear of New, also known as Neophobia. You will experience this type of fear at least once in your lifetime, even if you are the bravest of them all.

This type of fear can be experienced when you are trying out something that you are unfamiliar with and do not know much or anything about. For instance, trekking through a forest that you don't know at all, specially when you have never experienced a forest trek before. A similar kind of fear can be felt when you are alone in a place you don't know and you can't even speak the local language. But these are moderate cases where fear can be easily felt but you can also overcome this fear in these situations.

The extremity of this fear can be felt when you are alone in a dark room, during the night that too in a place that you have visited for the first time and you feel some kind of unfamiliar presence. Since you are not aware who or what it might be you will be scared to approach it and obviously may want somebody to speak before they approach you. There have been cases where people have died with a heart-attack because they got too scared.

There are also instances when you will be scared to try a new fashion just because you don't know if it will suit you or not. You will be afraid of what people around you might think of you. Sometimes people don't even want to get into a relationship after hearing about bad experiences from friends. This fear also comes in play when we talk about new generation and old traditions. Youths want to try new rules but the older generation is afraid of letting go old traditions or rules thus creating a generation gap.

This fear can be easily dealt with if we keep an open mind for things around us and keep ourselves ready for anything that may happen. Cheers to life everyone because you can't always live in fear.