5. Your Stupid Brain Wants You Indoors, Too
So, there’s this new theory emerging among psychologists called risk perception. According to recent reports, “Risk-perception studies have found that as our awareness of a risk rises … so does our fear.” In other words, when you’re looking at headlines and news reports that are devoted to covering the carnage, your mind is being alerted to a new potential threat. Unfortunately, your brain’s natural instinct is to fixate on any newly perceived fear. You are, sadly, your own worst enemy.
6. Learning Is the Best Way to Kill Fear
Think of how deeply entrenched we are in our own culture. We are all so super proud to be Americans, right? And anyone who’s not can eat one, right? However, “Samuel P. Huntington, a scholar in the political field predicted that the wars fought in the post-Cold War era will be religion-cultural ones instead of ideological.” What that means, essentially, is that if this fellow is correct, we’re in serious danger of allowing our own national pride to fuel violence. It is entirely possible to live in a world where we’re super proud Americans who have zero problem with other cultures. The best way to actually remove our fear of these different cultures is to get out there and mingle with them. International travel helps bridge cross-cultural divides, and that is essential now more than ever.
7. Fear Makes You Make Bad Decisions
Flight is now and always has been the statistically safest way to travel. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of 9-11, more people chose to skip the plane and drive instead. As one paper wrote, “Not long after September 11, a woman from the Boston area who had flown dozens of times announced to her family several states away that she was now afraid to fly and would instead drive to a family function the next weekend. She was killed in an automobile crash on the way.” In short: Fear makes you dumb.
