Addicted To Fear

We have just witnessed some horrible acts of violence at the hands of a shooter in Colorado.  My heart goes out to the survivors and family who remain behind.  I can only imagine the horror they are facing in the quiet moments.  The depth of their pain is great and unless you've been through this, it is hard to imagine the fullness of it.

One thing I find sad though is how addicted to fear we have become in our country.  As a result of this tragedy, we had the nonstop coverage on the news regarding this story.  Even when the news had nothing to say, they invented things to say.  One reporter thought that the shooter was a member of the tea party when in fact, this "investigative" reporter failed to fully do his job.

In these tragedies, we all expect our news programs to run continuous coverage of these events.  Whether they have anything to say or not, we as a nation are sitting on the edge of our seats just in case they have something new to report.  In my opinion, this is some of the most destructive behavior we can engage in. Yet, we drink the news as if it is our favorite alcoholic beverage.


Fear is at the heart of news reporting these days.  How often do you see headlines that are designed to hook you into the latest fear of the day?  In fact, if you analyzed what you see on the news, you would find that it is very negative, disrespectful, and destructive.

Of course, if you think that by watching the news you are more informed, I would beg to differ with you.  In fact, by watching the news, you are getting whatever bias that is being projected and every human has their own bias.  Even by trying to present both sides, in all reality it is nothing more than presenting moments of bias by whoever is speaking.  Gone are the days where facts are reported.  Now, it is just one argument after another of opinion, belief and bias.

We as a country are addicted to fear.  Whether it is through the news media that we suck in as if there is no tomorrow or if it is the political ads we buy into, we cannot even see how far off balance we are.  Of course, there are many more ways we are addicted to fear such as medication, medical procedures, how we control others, security systems and personnel, guns and pushing our beliefs upon the world.  The list could go on and on for a very long time.

Because we live in fear as a people, we are addicted to fear.  We long for that which seems familiar to our self and so we gulp it down.  The sad reality is that fear also makes us blind to truth.  We cannot even begin to see the what matters because fear distorts our view so much, focus is lost.  We may shout from on high all of our virtues and characteristics we hold dear, but as long as we live in a world of fear, our image will be far from the truth.

This is not a problem that society only has to solve.  It is a problem that begins within each individual person.  The more we buy into the fears of this world, the more we are part of the problem.  The more we go within and unlock and release our own fears, the more we are part of the solution.  The remedy to our addiction to fear does not belong with some movement or some government politician or some belief.

We can only stop becoming addicted to fear when we connect with our true and authentic self and by doing so, we raise our own consciousness and awareness.  When we do this, we change the world in a positive way, but it all starts with what we do in our own lives.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 7/30/12 by Don Shetterly

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