It’s easy to slide into anxiety today. Just turn on the news and you will be saturated by fear mongering. Social media, what was often thought of as an ‘escape’ from reality, is now more of an echo chamber for the same fears.
Looming economic collapse, pandemics, government overreach, civil unrest, mass shootings, natural disaster - and of course the omnipresent existential threat of climate disaster - it’s easy to see why one would be anxious.
So what do we do in the face of all this fear?
Knowledge dispels fear.
This motto hangs above the Australian Army’s Parachute Training School. It alludes to the confidence that will be gained through the teachings of the school, teachings that will terminate in you stepping out of a perfectly working aircraft at 1000ft in the air.
For me, it certainly did not dispel the fear, but rather forestalled it enough to allow me operate. The knowledge circumvented the freeze mechanism, and I could take the next step.
That’s all that required in life and in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds - the next step. We don’t need to ‘fix’ everything or solve the world’s problems, often we just need to take the next step.
That is one of the key goals of why I try to impart my years of experience in high threat and dangerous areas. So that you can have more knowledge. More knowledge on what to do in case things go wrong, however that looks. So that hopefully, instead of walking the earth stuck in a fear loop, you feel empowered, confident that in the face of opposition you can do something. You can take the next step.
Always being wary, always watching for the next threat can be tiring, to say the least. It can lead to a negative world view that the world is out to get you. But that is not what we want to achieve. Ideally, all that we teach, the knowledge, the skills, the preps and the plans, are all leading to you to have a world view that is confident in the face of crisis.
Semper Paratus.
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