I was surprised - almost shocked - with the recent thread about airline travel, and got to thinking about Fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of fear itself.

A major component of fear is a lack of experience. I recently listened to a tirade by a relative about what a "filthy, graffiti-ridden mess" the New York Subways are, and how "Dangerous" New York is because of all the "rampant crime". Now, if you have ridden the subways in the last 20 years, you know - from first hand experience - that the graffiti problem was eradicated long ago.

And you also would know that New York is one of the safest cities in America. It's not even on the list of dangerous cities anymore, and hasn't been for years:
http://www.morganquitno.com/xcit06pop.htm

But this isn't jsut about New York or Air Travel. I've posted here before, but for some reason it seems that today I need to say it loud and clear - your mind is your best survival tool, and experiences reduce your fear OR they can give you a proper validation of your fears.

Let me give you an example. When I was training to become a firefighter, we did a burn building drill on a hot August day. It was one of the first times I had been in fire, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, it's pretty awful. The steam is the part I hate, you feel it right through your gloves, especially when you're crawling in the wet soot. After about 4 straight hours in turnout gear, going an and out of the fire, my heart rate shot up to 188, and I started to pass out. It was heatstroke, I rolled out of school that day in an ambulance with an IV and a heart monitor.
When I went back to the burn building the next time, it was just as hot...but having experienced the fire, I was able to pace myself, think and keep cool - mentally - and to identify the real hazards in the fire, while trying to filter out the irrelevant noise. In recent years I've been reminded that I need to take a similar view of things when it comes to people, places, cultures and situations. When I am afraid of something, 90% of the time it's because I've not experienced it before, and at that point, I try very hard to remember that what I'm afraid of is NOT what is about to happen or what I'm about to do, it's that I'm afraid that I don't know what will happen or what to do. And surprisingly if you hold your fear off to the side and treat it as this thing that's a reaction to your inexperience, you can either let your inexperience feed your fear, or you can overwhelm fear with experience.
One last fire company story, kind of a sad one. A long while ago, I was at one of my first "messy" car wrecks. In this case, a guy hit a tree at 40+ miles per hour, was not wearing a seatbelt, and for some reason, he had a set of barbells in the back seat, which smashed into him from behind. The physical trauma was tremendous. I was ordered to do patient assessment, "Check if he's breathing" was the simple order. I couldn't tell where his face was, there was so much trauma and blood, and I was scared of what I was seeing. But then, I realized that there was something more important than my fear, and that was that the guy WAS ALIVE and we needed to get him out. "Breathing and a Pulse!" I shouted and then we got a BP (something absurd like 70/50 and falling), and we got the guy out. From that moment on my fear of those situations was replaced with a fear that's more real and valid - my fear is based on if we mess up and the person in the wreck dies, or we get hurt by an exploding airbag. But the fear of the gore and the trauma, that's not as big factor anymore. It's not pleasant, don't get me wrong, but it's expected. We all look the same after a bad car wreck.

So, this long pre-coffee ramble is a bit of advice to all of you who are equipped for Armageddon and being lost in the woods or trapped in a "big city" but unwilling to actually go into the woods or a go to a distant city or country. Don't let fear rule your day. Don't let the unknown become an enemy, because eventually, all that will be left to you are your familiar fears of the unknown, which thrive in a mind that has no new experiences.

Don't be equipped because you're afraid of what could happen, be equipped so you can enjoy life!