Just Take a Jump....

http://www.thehitavada.com/news-details/just-take-the-jump

We human beings are very adjusting creatures. In psychology Adjustment is the behavioral process by which humans and other animals maintain equilibrium among their various needs or between their needs and the obstacles of their environments. A sequence of adjustment begins when a need is felt and ends when it is satisfied. How exciting!! Theories of economics are supposed to be applied on these psychological concepts I guess. Why only economics?! Every new day, one can come to understand new theories of life which directly or indirectly are connected to psychology.

Similarly few days before, I came to know about a meaning of Agoraphobia. I was with my friend who is psychologist; he came for some chronic case discussion in some conference. Over a cup of coffee we started discussing about various topics which we usually do. But on that day I was quite and was not in a mood to chat as I normally am in. after a sip of a coffee I felt bit fresh and told him that I am not paying much attention in meeting or getting in touch people after an experience I had in last days. The moment I preside over expressing my thoughts and feelings regarding all these, he immediately said, in our language we call it Agoraphobia.

I was quite tensed when I heard this word; I thought maybe he is talking about some mental illness as he normally does. My goodness; is it me? He was taking it on a very normal and comic way but I was just scared. I was shocked for sure but I wanted to know about it. Then I came to know that fear of going out to public places is nothing but Agoraphobia. After having long discussion on that confusing English word, I finally came on my own conclusions.

It is a normal phenomenon for human being, that he has fears regarding something. May be not in case of everyone, but it happens for sure.

As mentioned earlier about the adjusting human behavior this process of adjustment involves various parts. Now which kind of adjustments we are talking about?

People strive to be comfortable in their surroundings and to have their psychological needs (such as love or affirmation) met through the social networks they inhabit. When needs arise, especially in new or changed surroundings, they impel interpersonal activity meant to satisfy those needs. In this way, people increase their familiarity and comfort with their environments, and they come to expect that their needs will be met in the future through their social networks. We expect much from our surroundings; actually for that comfortable expectations and surroundings we don’t want to or dare to come out of our cocoons. It goes on and on, and the day comes when we realize that something is wrong, people are changed and we find it difficult to cope up with. This process goes on because we are in cocoon and these ongoing difficulties in social and cultural adjustment may be accompanied by anxiety or depression. When feelings are of excessive apprehension or say anxiety, a person somehow stops thinking, stops believing on what he should actually do. Due to all this Agoraphobia takes place I guess.

After my meeting with my friend and Agoraphobia Discussion, I received a Message on my Whatsapp. It was a small story with a moral, narrating some common things in frog and human being. It said, Human Beings and frogs are the two creatures in nature that have tremendous power to adjust. Put a frog in a vessel of water and start heating the water. As the temperature of the water rises, the frog is able to adjust its body temperature accordingly. The frog keeps on adjusting with increase in temperature. Just when the water is about to reach boiling point, the frog is not able to adjust anymore. At that point the frog decides to jump out. The frog tries to jump but is unable to do so, because it lost all its strength in adjusting with the water temperature. Very soon the frog dies. 

Why he was adjusting so much? What happened with that frog? Why didn’t he come out then? What killed the frog? Many of us would say the boiling water. But the truth is what killed the frog was its his own inability to decide when it had to jump out. Correct!! Very True!!.....

We all need to adjust with people and situations, but we need to be sure when we need to adjust and when we need to face. There are times when we need to face the situation and take the appropriate action. If we don’t do so, for sure we have to face the situation of Agoraphobia. Very simple and easy thing to understand is, if we allow people to exploit us physically, emotionally or financially, they will continue to do so. There are many things which we can discuss on this ground, many examples can take place. We have to decide when to jump. Let us jump while we still have the strength and face the world with full confidence and no such word called Agoraphobia will take place.