Gosh, there seems to be a lot of stuff for us Americans to be afraid of these days. There’s the overarching, constant threat of harm from terrorists. Video games are ruining our children. Gas and electric prices will probably break us this winter, and next summer we’re bound to get skin cancer if we’re outside unprotected for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Last year we didn’t have enough flu vaccine and this year the calamitous bird flu looms. America’s heart is clutched with fear. Listening to the news makes us feel we are always in danger and forever on the brink of disaster.

Fear itself is not a bad thing. It serves us to be fearful when bears chase us or we wake up with the house in flames. It brings our focus to a single point, seems to slow time, and helps us to safety. Sometimes it gives us superhuman power: we’ve all heard stories of women who have lifted cars off their children. And bad things do happen. Every life is touched to some extent with illness, violence, and real tragedy. But fear rarely prevents harm from happening. It’s useless in healing the sick or keeping hurricanes from striking.

Useless fear is actually a dangerous thing. We spend huge amounts of energy being fearful of things that are not likely to happen. Even if they do happen, they’re unlikely to happen to us. In the event that they do happen to us, we’ll probably get out of it alive. A real threat to our safety is giving into fear day in and day out.

Chronic useless fear keeps us paralyzed and unable to achieve all we could. It takes a huge toll on our health and interferes with our ability to enjoy life. It consumes tremendous amounts of energy; energy that should be used for creative endeavors. Constant fear makes us less able to see a real threat, or to deal with it, should it show up.

On a national level, fear is more dangerous than all the things we’re afraid of put together. Misplaced fear creates deep divides between our religious, political, cultural, and economic groups. It eats up the energy we should be using for creative solutions to our problems and we waste more of it by making knee-jerk decisions likely to cause more harm than good. A population in the grip of fear sees danger everywhere and is ready to hold responsible any group they don’t like. At its extreme, normally civilized people will stand by, rationalizing atrocity as “necessary.”

2005 was a challenging year. While I hope 2006 is better, it might not be. Some suggest that hard times are cyclical and there isn’t much we can do to prevent them, but we know that mass consciousness influences events. I ask you to join together in reducing the amount of fear surrounding our country and our world. Tap into your source of peace and calm and beam it out to the world. Each time you find yourself fearful, remember that if there’s nothing you can do about it right now, let it go, and reset yourself to calm. There are tens of thousands of people who read The Monthly Aspectarian and there are millions more out there who are like-minded. Let’s refuse to get swept up in useless fear and become centers of calm in our own little spheres. Let’s do what we can to change the world.