Friday, March 3, 2017

Fear


                What makes you fearful or worry about a situation?  Some people worry about everything!  It’s often surprising that they can get anything done because of their constant anxiety over so many details.  But there are many situations that make people worry and there are those situations that bring a dreaded fear upon some people.

                One of the biggest areas that brings fear and worry to individuals and families is MONEY!  They fear they are never going to have enough or maybe they won’t have it at the specific time they need it.  Of course, often the problem concerning money is that people don’t have a realistic budget or maybe they don’t have one at all!  Others are extremely carless with money.  They take an attitude “if I have it, I’ll spend it and then I’ll worry about getting more later!”  Years ago I had a brother-in-law who got himself into an extremely bad situation financially by not paying his bills.  His thinking was like this:  “I owe creditor “A” $500 and I owe creditor “B” $300.  Today I only got paid $250.  Since I don’t have enough money to pay either of them the balance of what I owe them, I’ll not pay either of them anything!  I’ll just have this money for myself!”  Needless to say that type of thinking didn’t go over very well with ANY of his creditors!

                And the truly sad part of the fear of not having enough money doesn’t really end there.  When people have an abundance of money they “UP” their style of living so that what they have continues to be insufficient to cover what they now have to spend.  Even when a person has, as the expression goes, “more money than they know what to do with”, they worry that someone is going to take it away from them, or cheat them out of it, or that the stock market will crash, or a company will “fold-up” and their investment is gone, or whatever other situation they can imagine in their minds.  There may be some solid foundation to some of their concerns but most often people create so many varying situations in their minds that they can’t sleep at night because of the worry.

                A second area that has many people overly concerned is HEALTH!  Now, let’s start by my saying, I understand today there are many people suffering from one affliction or another.  And I am, by NO means, wanting to sound like I’m making light of those who are dealing with such conditions.  I am merely observing that often people “focus” their time, efforts, finances, and other resources on their afflictions (real or not) until they cannot function on a day-to-day basis.  There used to be a word for that --- hypochondriac.  I don’t know if they still use that word or not.  To give you an example I would like to start by saying my family are Caucasians.  But when I was growing up, my Mother would hear a report on the evening news about a “new” illness that was afflicting ONE percent of the MALE pigmy population in Africa.  The next morning she would inform us that she was positive that she was having the symptoms of the “new” disease they had mentioned the night before on the news!!!

                There are some people who are going to worry about becoming sick to such a point, they, in effect, make themselves sick from the worry.  So not only are they in fear of losing what portion of good health they have, but they will also increase their worries because they’ll spend money on “cures” that only have the effect of depleting their bank accounts and do NOTHING about the condition of their health!  And for those who COULD receive some help from medications or medical services that are on the market, they CAN’T AFFORD to obtain them!  Now this is one area that can really get me thinking seriously.  Aren’t pharmaceutical companies (at least usually) set up as non-profit organizations for research purposes?  They get huge grants from the government and from other companies and even donated funds from individuals to pay for the research they do in producing the products that they offer as remedies for various ailments?  But when these products come to market, they are made available at outlandish prices in an effort “to re-coupe their research funds.” Why are they “recouping” funds that were freely given to them to start with?  It sounds like a money scamming machine to me!

                When you listen to the news on the television or on the radio, every day there are many new reasons to plant fear, anxiety, and worry into our minds.  We will probably find, from a human perspective, we will never find the solutions to all the problems we face within ourselves.  This must bring into play another aspect of our human nature --- faith!  Yet, faith is not the possession of all people.
QUOTE TO CONSIDER


THOUGHTFUL GEM

"Accidents happen to us all,
but PLAN not to have one."

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