Lean On Him

Years ago the widely-read newspaper advice column know as “Ann Landers” received as many as twelve thousand letters a month. Nearly all of them were from persons burdened with a wide variety of problems. Asked if there was one predominant theme in the readers’ requests for help, the columnist replied, “Yes there is. It is fear. People are afraid of losing their loved ones. People are afraid of life itself.”

Fear makes us humans believe the worst. Obsessive fears can transform benign and even beneficial objects into symbols of deadly terror.

Persons who live in constant fear of the possibility of sickness are capable of translating an ordinary itch into a symptom of some terrible disease. They are called “hypocondriacs.”

There are technical names for others who fear such things as being alone, high altitudes, water, closed in areas, crowds, and so on.

The obsessive fears themselves are called “phobias.”

After many years of air-travel, a businessman suddenly developed an intense fear of…