The shape of fear…..!!
It is from the time of Mahabharata. Once Krishna and Balram were passing through a forest. They had been walking for a long time and now the sun was about to set. It was not possible to move ahead in the darkness, so Krishna said, “Balram, let us stay here till morning, as soon as it is dawn we will move towards our destination. Balram said, “But we may be in danger in this dense forest, it will not be appropriate to sleep here, we will have to spend the night awake.” Krishna suggested – “Okay, let us do this, first I will sleep and till then you keep watch, and then as soon as you feel sleepy, you wake me up; Then I will guard and you go to sleep.” Balram got ready. In a few moments Krishna went into a deep sleep
In sometime, Balram saw a terrifying figure coming towards him, it was a demon. The demon screamed loudly on seeing him and Balram got very scared. This incident had a strange effect. Due to fear, Balram’s size became a little smaller and the demon became even bigger. After that the demon screamed once more and again Balram trembled with fear, now Balram shrank even more and the demon became even bigger than before. The demon slowly started moving towards Balram, Balram was already scared, so he screamed loudly – “Krishna”, and as soon as he screamed, he fell unconscious there. Hearing Balram’s voice, Krishna got up, seeing Balram there, he thought that Balram got tired of guarding and called him before sleeping.
Now Krishna started guarding. After some time, the same demon came in front of him and screamed loudly. Krishna did not panic at all and said, “Tell me, Why are you screaming like this, what do you want?” This time also something strange happened- due to Krishna’s courage his size increased a bit and the demon’s size decreased a bit. For the first time the demon had found someone who was not afraid of him. In panic he screamed loudly at Krishna again. This time also Krishna was not afraid and his size increased even more while the demon became smaller than before. In a last attempt the demon screamed with all his might but Krishna smiled and said again, “Tell me what do you want?” Then what happened was that the demon became very small and Krishna took him in his palm and tied him in his dhoti and then kept him tucked in his waist.
In morning, Krishna and Balram started moving slowly when Balram said excitedly, “Do you know what happened last night, a terrible demon came to kill us!” Wait, wait”, interrupting Balaram, Krishna took out a demon tied in his dhoti and showing it to Balarama said, “Are you talking about this?” “Yes, it is the same. But yesterday when I saw it it was very big, how did it become so small?”, Balarama wondered. Krishna said, “In life when you try to avoid something that you must face it becomes bigger than you and starts controlling you but when you face something that you must face you become bigger than it and start controlling it!”
In the world of investments, if an investor tries to avoid or ignore risks, the risk starts becoming bigger, which can lead to fear-based decisions. On the other hand, if an investor acknowledges the risk, understands it, then the risk can be controlled. This does not mean that the risk disappears, but it becomes a manageable one.
Facing risks is a better strategy than avoiding them. It is about understanding and managing risk, not avoiding it.
– Nishit Siddharth Shah