We live in a fear-promoting society. It is the business of advertisers to stoke our anxieties about what we have, what we look like, and whether we are sexually adequate. A dissatisfied consumer is more apt to buy. Likewise, the purveyors of television news attempt to hold our interest by scaring us with stories of violent crime, natural disasters, threatening weather, and environmental hazards.
One of the things that define us is what we worry about. Life is full of uncertainty and random catastrophe. It is easy, therefore, to justify almost any anxiety. The list of fears that people carry with them is long and varied, and a function of the information with which we are bombarded.
People who are anxious to begin with are especially prone to specific fears. In their most exaggerated form these are called phobias. Phobias are an irrational but disabling fear. Reaction to the terrorist attacks of 2001 provides an illuminating example of how public fear can have profound consequences. People in large numbers sold their stocks and stopped flying. Airlines were pushed into bankruptcy. Then came the anthrax scare; the public became afraid of their mail and supplies of gas masks ran out. Australia was becoming like an asylum for anxiety sufferers.
Even in good times the public perception of the risk of becoming a crime victim is exaggerated. We arm ourselves against mythical intruders and ignore the reality that family members are the most likely victims of the defences we employ. Meanwhile, the real risks to our welfare – smoking, overeating, heart disease, speeding, social injustice, and the people we elect to office – provoke little anxiety.
Just as phobias serve as a distraction from more fundamental and troubling fears, perhaps the things that terrorise us as a group serve a similar function in the life of the nation. If we focused on Swine Flu, mad cow disease, or prowlers in the night, we are less likely to pay attention to environmental degradation or the erosion of our civil liberties, problems that may seem entirely beyond our individual ability to influence. Even war seems to have little effect on the anxiety of any except those with family members at risk.
Our relations with each other are characterised by mistrust. Instead of a sense of shared fate and the capitalistic idea that we can all prosper together, we often behave as if life is a competition that we can only win at the expense of others. We live with the fear of being sued. For some medical specialities the likelihood and consequences of error are much higher and their insurance premiums are elevated to the point that some doctors are leaving medicine.
We are bombarded by images of those who have succeeded with little or no effort or ability; inheritances, reality show participants, no-talent entertainers. This naturally leads to distortions in our sense of what is valuable or lasting. Our own lives and relationships seem pedestrian by contrast.
If our cultural icons are flawed, our political leadership is no more inspiring. The level of intelligence and integrity displayed by those we elect to office is generally unimpressive. In fact, it sometimes seems that our political system is designed to select those whose narcissism and hunger for power overwhelm their professed concerns for the welfare of their fellow citizens.
Rather than be afraid of these real threats to our wellbeing, we are persuaded that our maximum danger resides in some foreign place inhabited by those who wish us ill. We are all too easily manipulated by our fears into believing in military solutions to human problems. Like the carpenter whose only tool is a hammer, every problem looks to us like a nail.
Though unpleasant to experience, fear can be an adaptive emotion if it results in actions that protect us from harm. For this to happen, however, threats must be identified realistically. This requires accurate information and the ability to integrate it into useful knowledge. If we are deceived by those we trust to inform us (our government), or if our sources of information have a stake in keeping us afraid (the news media), then it is little wonder that we spend our time worrying about remote threats like terrorist attacks, while ignoring real risks such as global warming.
And so it is in our personal lives as well. Fear and desire are opposite sides of the same coin. Much of what we do is driven by fear of failure. A primary example is that pursuit of material wealth. This is also the engine that drives our economy and a way of “keeping score.” But this effort lacks ultimate meaning for most of us and distracts us from activities and people that provide more lasting pleasure and satisfaction. If it is true that no one on their deathbed wishes that they had spent more time in the office, what does that suggest for redirecting our efforts now?
Much of our behaviour is driven by some combination of greed and competition. The successful entrepreneur is the model of success. Success in business seems like a confirmation of the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest. The quality or usefulness of the work is insignificant compared to the wealth it generates.
Fear, while effective in the short term, is not useful in producing lasting change. The use of is as a motivator for behaviour ignores the fact that there are no more powerful desires than the pursuit of happiness and the struggle for self respect. If means can be found that move people in these directions: better jobs, education, the chance to improve one’s life, and a sense of fairness and opportunity, the seductive and short-lived bliss provided by drugs will lose its appeal.
The sum of our fears is the knowledge of our vulnerability to random misfortune and the certainty of our eventual mortality. If we have the courage to savour the moments of pleasure that our brief lives contain, so much the better. If we have the courage to not let the present moment be drained of joy by fear of the future or regret for the past, then let it be so.
Taken from the book, “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart” by Gordon Livingston.