what are you afraid of?

How often through a course of a day are we afraid?

I think it might be more than we would really want to admit. Which in and of itself is odd, we are afraid of what other might think if we admit we are afraid.

Last night on his show Rick Mercer did an excellent rant that very nicely summed up my feeling towards the whole flu situation and the way the media is handling it. Various news organizations, who claim to “serve” their viewers would be doing everyone a lot of good if they would just shut up and cover some actual news rather than inciting fear and panic in people over something as trivial as a sickness that everyone has had several times in their life and will have many more times before they die &ndash; and no this one isn’t any more likely to be the one that kills them then any other flu was.

I think the only thing that makes me more upset than the media inspiring fear in people is people blindly following. Personally when I am trying to avoid illness I avoid large groups of people, I stay warm and don’t stand outside for hours. Apparently though people have been sent into such panic that they have left common sense somewhere else and will stand outside in line for hours to get a vaccine who’s affect may or may not do anything for you. I can guarantee that you are probably more likely to be sick now than you were before since you stood outside in the fall air for hours.

Fear of course is not just the fault of the media or as a result of some new flu, this is just the most prevalent cause of fear at this moment. So then how do we overcome the fear? Or even why do we overcome the fear? Is being terrified really so bad?