The Reality.
Are You Ready for the Truth?
“Most Americans are living in the safest place at the safest time in human history.”
Barry Glassner
Sociologist and author of The Culture of Fear
Wait a minute -- that can’t be right. Our parents have been telling us the world is far more dangerous today than it was when they were growing up. People have to be more careful. We need to buckle up, we need to know how to run and hide, we need to say something if we see something. After all, there are a lot of scary things and scary people out there: terrorists and bombs and active shooters and strange backpacks and runaway trucks and creepy pedophiles and violent young adult males. We must be on a constant state of alert. We must stay safe!
But Glassner is right: In 2017, Americans were more likely to die in a shark attack or an asteroid strike than at the hands of a foreign terrorist. They were also more likely to die from cancer or heart disease or a motor vehicle accident than in a shooting.
In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported the following as the leading causes of death for Americans:
-
Heart disease: 633,842
-
Cancer: 595,930
-
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 155,041
-
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 146,571
-
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 140,323
-
Alzheimer’s disease: 110,561
-
Diabetes: 79,535
-
Influenza and Pneumonia: 57,062
-
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 49,959
-
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 44,193
Not visible in this list is a frightening statistic: drug overdoses became the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50 in the year 2016, according to data compiled by The New York Times. This represented an increase of nearly 20 percent from the previous year. Also not included in this list is the fact that more terrorist attacks are being carried out by individuals: 33% of all attacks in 2017 compared to only 7% in 1995 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Despite these disturbing trends, according to research compiled for an article in Rolling Stone, “In the U.S., life expectancy is higher than ever, our air is the cleanest it’s been in a decade, and despite a slight uptick last year, violent crime has been trending down since 1991.”
People Are Still Worried
Statistics don’t lie. But not everyone pays attention to statistics, and when it comes to anxiety -- defined by what could happen rather than what is happening -- it is the mind that determines our greatest fears. Despite the high risk of heart disease, cancer, and drug overdose, surprisingly few health risks show up on the 2017 Survey of American Fears conducted by Chapman University. The majority of people seem to lack fear toward the things that present the most direct threats to their lives. Instead, here is what a random sample of 1,207 American adults said they worried about most:
What if we isolate the fears of millennials?
A global survey of millennials (ages 18 to 34) conducted by Deloitte lists the following order of top anxieties among this age group:
​
1. war, terrorism and political tension
2. hunger, healthcare, and income inequality
3. crime and corruption
4. economy and unemployment
5. environment
According to this survey, the top three fears of millennials throughout the world are war, terrorism, and political tension. Comparing these fears to the actual causes of death for Americans, it would seem that our minds' anxieties are out of step with reality. Some of our biggest worries have nothing to do with the greatest dangers to our survival. Why is this?
As we have discussed, anxiety is not the same as fear, which results from something bad actually happening. It is the anticipation that something bad is going to happen to us.
​
As anxious millennials and the children of fearful parents, how can we devote attention to the things that really matter? How can we maintain a healthy level of anxiety for the fears that make sense in today’s world -- and let go of those that don’t?
​