Fear drives us

We love danger. We love reminding ourselves of all the terrible things going on in the world. We watch the news, we browse our social media feeds and we glue ourselves to screens. We are captured by the good, bad and beautiful. Mostly, things are mundane, but every so often we are reminded that truly terrible things happen in the world. Terrible things that we can selfishly be thankful that they are not happening to us. These things remind us to be grateful, and to be joyous in our protected lives. 

This friendly knife salesman always gets bad reviews

There’s a reason why fear captures our attention so easily. It’s drilled into us at a primal level. If you ignored danger in the past you were maimed or killed. Dangers weren’t some rare fantasy in a far off world that you could simply ignore. They were immediate, and they were life threatening. Our ability to perceive and minimize the threat to our health was paramount to us surviving. 

Jumping up and down on these is never a good idea

When there’s something in our gut that says we should run, we should listen. It’s a primal instinct from thousands of years living amongst dangerous predators, environmental changes and threats. It’s a voice that is honed to be alert and can be extremely useful. So try and ignore the news for a bit, or any other medium designed to target that voice when you don’t need it. They all make it less effective when you do need it. So sharpen that voice, so it’s available for you to fight or flight. It might just save your life.