Fear or Doubt

Fear the word itself brings back memories of moments that sent shivers across our spines.We all have fear of different things.Fear of water,ghosts,darkness,closed rooms etc.I too had my own fears , infact we all have.But what is that which we fear the most.Is it the fear of failure or fear of unknown or fear of abstractness as darkness? And i thought what is it which gives us this feeling?During my childhood days there was a incidence which i would relate here.I feared darkness i never knew why but i feared it.I would not venture out in darkness just for the fear.I was the fatoo in family of daredevils which certainly caused butterflies in his stomach.I was like the swami of R.K.Narayan who feared loneliness and darkness and like his father my father too took me to a expedition a very different one.Every night he would take me out in our lawn which was quite big and a section of it was pitch black.He would accompany me to some distance and then would ask me to continue while he would relax.The most difficult assignment for me by any standards.But i would try to evade it someway or the other.This thing continued till he totally dropped the idea that i could change.
Though i changed but gradually.As we say time teaches us many things so did i learn.The fear was gone so one day i just thought what did i fear from.Trying to recollect as much feelings of that time as i could.And i found i feared the abstractness of the darkness.The unknown feeling of what may come out of this darkness.But why did i fear the unknown ?Since i doubted my self to handle this unknown.
This propensity to doubt myself aggravated my condition till the time i could not venture out alone.Then just continuing i thought why we all fear an exam?It is not the known that we fear but the unknown that we all fear from.It is when we start doubting ourselves to handle the unknown that the fear takes the centerstage.
As it is said "A person is brave since he had the courage to stand that one extra minute when all people ran away."This courage will come only with the confidence on oneself to handle any situation.