The Wait For Good Days

The other day, a friend asked: "What is your biggest fear in life?"   I didn't respond promptly, as I always do.  "Ha ha", he said: "You seem to be like me, harbouring more than one fear, right?"  “Wrong”, I said: “I was in fact searching for one that frightens me.”

He wasn't convinced:  “How can you say that?   Everyone experiences fear.  It is like any other emotion that grips you without warning.  Why are you ashamed to accept it?  Don't you think, fear in a way, helps us to counter or circumvent an imminent danger?  Most often our reflexes help us.  Only in its absence, does fear keep haunting us, and disrupting our thoughts and lives.”

He continued: “In my case, loneliness is at the root of all my fear.  Seclusion, solitude, isolation, alienation..., call it whatever you want.  Even within the family, I feel like an island without a bridge.  Covid-19 has made that feeling worse, imposing unimaginable restrictions, and threatening to wreck my faculties.”

You may wonder.., has this guy gone bonkers?  No.  He was openly expressing his concerns.  And the reality is, he is not alone.  Many people I talk to, express increasing levels of boredom, lethargy, and fatigue.  There is an air of all round uncertainty.  The question is, how long is this going to last?  Would we ever see ''good days'' again?

Life, we are told, is beautiful.  But we tend to forget, how that beautiful life shocks us at times.  In such moments of anxiety, fear, and helplessness, if we have to retain our mental balance, we must stay calm, confident and optimistic.  

The one-liner below tells us, nothing is ever totally lost, even when we fear falling into an abyss!

 “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt