Good point. Fear of the unknown is, in my opinion, much bigger than some imagined "bad thing." When I first got into law enforcement, I was worried about my first fatal T/C, my first felony stop, my first fight on the side of some freeway, my first flare pattern in the middle of the El Segundo curve, etc etc etc. And as I experience each one, without any hesitation or shivers as it happened, I discovered that I was somehow already equipped to handle each one rapidly and properly. Don't know if was my training, experience (I was a whopping 25 years old), the fear of looking bad in front of my peers and the public, or just blind dumb luck. After a very short (in my estimation) time, I was able to handle whatever came up without any problems whatsoever. I don't recall feeling anything like fear since 1971. I do have a healty respect for a lot of things, and try to maintain a high level of awareness where ever I happen to be, because I know that bad things can happen in an instant, but fear? Nope.

A few weeks ago the campground we are "working" in had the biggest wood chipper I have ever seen (this thing will chew up a 12" diameter log at high speed). My wife and I were both feeding wood into it as fast as we could drag it up, the young male seasonal worker at the park was supposed to be helping, but he was sooo afraid of that thing he only fed one piece into it all day, spent the rest of the day just staring at it from 100 ft away, almost visibly shaking. He apparently has not learned to overcome his fears yet...