“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”- Martin Luther King Jr. This quote is very simple yet extremely effective. If we only fear fear itself then why do we still fear fear and not just forget our fear of fear altogether. I think that the reason that we fear fear is because we fear what something might do to us.

We are not afraid of the way sharks look or what they do in the ocean, but we are instead afraid of what they could do to us. All the time, people begin to worry if someone gets “attacked” by a shark because they fear for themselves. The truth is, they are there all the time when we go swimming and we don’t even realize it, because they aren’t out to hurt us. If anyone does get attacked, most of the time it is a mistake.

You have a greater chance of being struck by lightning then getting attacked by a shark, but we still go outside in the rain without a second thought. So why is there a constant fear for things that don’t actually do us much harm?

All of last year 118 shark attack were reported with just 17 fatalities. 118 out of over 7 billion people worldwide. One hundred and eighteen.

Maybe it’s just human instinct or maybe it’s to show power, but most of the time we just try and get rid of our fears instead of facing them. Triumphant, we march around like we can get rid of any problem we want but the sharks aren’t the real problem. We are.

Due to this, about 100 million sharks are killed every year, which is terrible because over 99% of these creatures are innocent and don’t deserve such harsh treatment. Nobody can predict what the future will be like when the sharks aren’t there to balance our ecosystem, and hopefully we never find out

Fearing things, it’s a part of our everyday lives, and that’s what makes us do some pretty stupid things. Sometimes those things are more costly than others, but all have an impact. We all must learn to step up to our fears and confront them, showing ourselves that there is nothing to be afraid of. So why do we get rid of certain things just to satisfy our need for safety? If we only fear fear itself then lets just end our fear of fear and continue on with our lives and let everything do what it needs to, to survive.