Phobia

Friday the 13 TH, the day people hide under the covers, avoid black cats, don't walk under ladders, etc, etc. One might wonder why a date on a calendar has such a powerful effect on them, or even why they'd let it affect them at all?

Phobia, an explanation one can accept to rationalize what they don't understand. Often passed down from generation to generation, and accepted as fact, for lack of information. At some point in time, somewhere, somehow, someone had a bad day on Friday the 13 TH, now to explain that coincidence away, it's universally accepted as a bad luck symbol.

Our quirks become hereditary. I can't tell you how many people I've met that share the same fears and phobias as a parent. A perfectly grown, oversized man fearful of a bug, an otherwise rational woman, afraid to enter the water because fish live in it. It applies to food as well, how many children won't eat beef with any tinge of pink in it, for the irrational fear of disease passed on by a parent's phobia? It's the fear of the unknown, a lack of information or experience that send these otherwise fearless humans into a panic.

Action cures fears, as well as a good dose of information. Most of what we fear is based in ignorance. How sad is it when one gripped by fear misses out on a great time, because they refuse to face their fears? Never stop the learning process, and never, ever miss out on a chance to experience something new. Information and experience can put those phobias back in the closet to lurk in the darkness an await some other uninformed victim.

God Bless!
Capt. Bill