Fear

I was listening to Armstrong and Getty on the radio this morning and they had a very interesting topic about fear. I didn't hear the source, but they were reading from some article on the subject. The author talked about how so many of us have disproportionate fear. For example, we fear our child will be kidnapped on the way to school, so we drive them. But the chances of getting kidnapped are far less than the chance we will get in an automobile accident. He said many of us won't let our child go to the park alone because of fear of abduction by pedophiles, but he said our child would have to stand out on the sidewalk for an average of 750,000 hours before that chance would happen. We drive our kids everywhere because we don't want them hurt or lost, but in the mean time, they are probably sitting in the back seat eating chips and getting fat, which is a far greater risk to them than the risks we most fear.

I remember one time when there was a High school shooting in the midwest. (not Columbine, but I can't remember where.) That afternoon, parents met at our elementary school to discuss safety issues with our principal. My friend requested I go with her, so even though I didn't have concerns about safety, I decided to do it as a favor to her. I was so surprised at the attitude of the parents. They were TERRIFIED about the possibility of dangerous things happening at our elementary school. One of them said, "Well, what will you do if a truck loaded with explosives drives up on to the lawn next to the school?" This is when I spoke up. I said, "Your child's chances of getting hit by a car on their way to school are FAR greater than the chance that someone will drive a truck of explosives up on to the school lawn. You hear about the one high school that had a shooting, but you have to remember there are hundreds of thousands of other high schools that DIDN'T have a shooting." It was amazing to see how their mood changed after that. Hysteria really can be infective. But at the same time, so can common sense.

My mother is always worrying about what COULD happen. She was worried when I moved to China. Now she is worried because of the city in which I live in California. I finally told her that if I lived my life in fear of what COULD happen, I would be afraid to do anything! You can't live your life with a "what if" attitude. And like the author of the article said, there are far more risks you don't acknowledge than the ones sensationalized on television.