Fear is the Most Dangerous Virus!

In challenging times, we must make decisions based on logic and rationale instead of being driven by fear.

By Vijay Eswaran

As we live through the once-in-a-century pandemic currently under way, fear of the unknown and the panic it generates is perhaps the most contagious virus of our time.

The thing about fear is that it can be transmitted instantly over the airwaves from smartphone to smartphone through group chats and social media feeds. Even more worrisome is that it can spread from one to many, almost at the speed of light.

The progression of the fear contagion is not merely mathematical or even geometrical; it is also astronomical, and that’s dangerous.

Today, fear has paralyzed the planet more so than the virus itself. Although we have every reason to be worried and must act with caution, it is imperative that during challenging times, we make decisions and choices based on logic and rationale instead of being driven by fear.

Fear has a tendency of overtaking the facts. It is fully capable of taking us on flights of nightmarish fancy. The danger lies in the two extremes when fear overtakes. One is being so paralyzed by fear that we freeze, and the other is being so trapped in a virtual euphoria of fear that we simply react without thinking. Both are equally dangerous. Fear has the peculiar tendency to remove the balance from our thinking. Now more than ever, the world needs to be balanced.

We have survived wars, earthquakes, floods and famine, the outbreak of SARS, MERS, Zika, Bird Flu, Ebola and the like, and arguably the most devastating pandemic of the 20th century, HIV/AIDS. Worse calamities have befallen the world, and there will be more. But we will prevail, as we have always done — just as long as we do not fall into a fearinduced frenzy.

In 1948, CS Lewis wrote about the atomic bomb in an essay titled “On Living in an Atomic Age.”

“This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

These words bear some relevance to our situation today if you replace the words atomic bomb with COVID-19. Once again, I emphasize that I am not diminishing the very real threat we all face today, but Lewis’ words are a reminder that while the threat of death is serious, it’s not novel. Let’s not succumb to panic or allow fear to dominate our minds and paralyze our hearts.

The Need To Work Together

Now more than ever, we need to band together as one (figuratively speaking of course, in these times of social distancing). We cannot afford to lose our sense of goodwill and compassion for others in a desperate attempt to save ourselves.

The cost of all this panic is that the weak and vulnerable will feel its ultimate impact. Our humanity is being tested every single day and we need to prevail. It is only by caring for each other that we can come out on the other side of this relatively unscathed.

We are fighting a war, and the humane within us must emerge victorious in order for humanity to prevail.

Vijay Eswaran is an entrepreneur, speaker and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of the QI Group of Companies, a multi-business conglomerate with headquarters in Hong Kong, and offices in more than 25 countries.