If we would be healthy in body and mind we must eliminate fear.

The great majority of us live in fear of one sort or another. Fear of

pain, fear of poverty, fear of disease, fear of homelessness, of 

failure, of disgrace, etc. Every individual has his or her personal

catalogue of fears, and generally the list of phobias grows longer 

the more "civilised", educated and industrialised we become.

Anxiety is the common condition. Stress the common killer.

We might reasonably assume that there would be less to fear in 

primitive societies. Yet, oddly, where life is very basic and possessions 

few and money nonexistent, people will invent things to be

afraid of such as ghosts, evil spirits, demons and the like.

The facts of life are fearful enough. We are all doomed to sickness, 

old age and death. Why then am I wasting my time with this book? 

If urinary disease doesn't get you, something, maybe a No. 52 bus 

surely will.

There is method in my madness however. Consider our fearful 

habits of thought. We suffer considerably from our ability to 

imagine unhappy consequences of what happened yesterday, 

or a minute ago, or what may happen tomorrow and to project 

these ideas forward into a fantasy future as a cloud of worry. 

Millions of unhappy people act out their brief lives chewing 

the cud of worry. They look worried, they are worried and they 

are sleepwalking.

Hope plays a prominent part in the worry game. We hope that 

things will improve or turn out right for us, or we will get well or 

become wealthy or gain prestige. Without hope our fantasies 

would spiral down into chronic depression, but nevertheless we 

must recognise it as the other partner in the pas de deaux of 

energy sapping worry.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast". 

"Faith, Hope and Charity". 

There is great reverence paid to these ideas, but consider.

Compared with Faith and Charity, hope is pretty small beer, for if 

one has faith, then hope is unnecessary and the fire of love, for that 

is what charity is supposed to be, gives short shrift to personal hopes 

and fears caught in its flames.

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