Yoda told Anakin, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” This quote resonate in my heart and opened my eyes towards all kinds of people’s behavior. I met some rich people who hardly spent their money and kept accumulating their wealth. Judging from Yoda’s quote of fear, these rich people have fear towards losing their money which leads to lose their comfort including food. However, I met some who choose to live a cheap rented apartment and rented their nicer house to earn money. That is, they were willing to sacrifice their comfort for making more money. The fear of losing money make them live in uncomfortable living condition.
I met several software developers who had tremendous fear of losing jobs. These people crafted the system to hide the core system so that no one can replace them. When I tried to approach them to learn the system, they created several obstacles including excuse of being busy with other projects.
Workaholic is another form of fear of losing job. I worked with several workaholic who kept checking the status of their projects. They were always worried so even on weekends, they checked their company emails and logged into systems to check the status. Their souls could never rest during the weekends. The stress from job should be reduced during weekends doing hobbies but they never really reduce stress from work. Eventually, stress accumulates to the point, they need to go to a hospital. One of my manager was like that. When I saw his right hand, it was shaken constantly and he had to leave the company for several weeks to be in a hospital. I met female workers who was so overweight. They too could not reduce work stress and resorted to food especially sweets. Being overweight cause several health issues including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar level.
Once we lose health, we cannot recover it and we cannot enjoy our lives after retirement. What for keep worrying about the job and lose one’s health? A company won’t take care of your health when you are no longer useful to the company’s bottom line. It is very important not to worry too much about our job.
I met a friend whose father did not spend time with him during the weekend. The father always went out with his wife instead. This is another form of fear. The fear of losing his wife’s love. Because of his fear, he was compelled to spend time with his wife during weekends and neglected his son. My friend always told me that “my father never took me to ski, never played baseball with me.” When my friend grew up to be an adult, he had no desire to spend time with his father. Ironically, his father begged my friend to spend time but it was too late. He could have spent as short as one hour with his son during weekends.
Control freaks are people with fear. They cannot trust anyone and they have a tremendous fear of not succeeding. They are compelled to control everything so that they feel they can avoid any failure. A control freak makes everyone around her uncomfortable. I had a worst experience in my life that I had an extreme control freak manager. Well, to keep my mental sanity, I quit the job.
What Yoda said to Anakin really explains all kinds of life issues. Being stingy, workaholic, neglecting kids, control freak are examples of undesirable behavior. Several religions preach believers some ways to let go of their fear. Happiness comes from health mind and body. Never let fear control you!
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