Every creature on earth experiences fear to one degree or another. But what separates man from the animals, is man fears not only the real impending doom he can see or hear but his mind can conger up calamities that are not even on the horizon. Often times this is aided by unsubstantiated information that may or may not be, just someone’s opinion. This can have the effect of causing undue alarm.
Franklin Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” This was FDR’s way of telling the American people in World War II that their fear could have the effect of just making everything worse. It’s not conducive to rational thinking and although it is real and serves a purpose, we need to put things into perspective.
As a young firefighter I remember times when we were involved in situations that had many
unknowns. For instance, when you were inside a burning building, you had no idea if the
building was going to blow sky high or fall down on top of you. Experience tells you this rarely
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happens but you don’t remember all the times it didn’t happen; you only remember the times
it did but then at that stage of the game you didn’t have that experience, did you? It’s this lack
of information that fear feeds on
There is a very real chance the flu pandemic will come. We need to listen to the experts and
make good decisions on how to not get involved in it. But if we do, then we need to do what we
are told to take care of ourselves. Like a bad storm it will pass and things will go back to normal.
Mike Holst
Crosslake
