We live in a cynical age and world. We would much rather believe the negative than the positive. Fear nowadays generally wins over faith.

Today I saw a patient of asthma whom I had seen earlier too about an year ago. This is her account as she told me:

” Doc, I had visited your clinic an year ago and you had done some tests and diagnosed that I had asthma. You had asked me to take some inhaler and with that I had improved.  Few days ago, I had gone to my local doctor for a fever and he saw your prescriptions. He told me that these are steroids and I must immediately stop these. I got scared and stopped them. Slowly my symptoms of breathlessness returned but I somehow tolerated that. Now it is intolerable. I am breathless ALL the time. So I have come back to you.”

I said ” I had explained in detail to you that you have asthma and these inhalers have steroids but they are safe. Then why did you stop them ? That means you did not have faith in me!! ”

Her answer was ” Doc I have the fullest faith in you; in fact I have sent many patients to you and all of them are better. BUT I WAS SCARED ”

Is fear such a strong negative emotion that it is intrinsically stronger than the positivity of faith ?

Or is this a reflection of the age and times that we live in where it is hard to trust ANYBODY ??

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind…