Fear from the outside breeds fear
on the inside.

"Just for a day, pay attention to all the fear-based messages you hear. Those messages will astound you — everything from 'You're likely to be a victim of identify theft' to 'If you don't have $2 million saved for retirement by the time you're fifty, you'll spend the last few years of your life on the streets.'

"You'll hear alarming statistics — about getting cancer, or how unlikely you are to find a mate after forty; the odds of having a child with addiction issues, or of losing your job. And then there's the long list of symptoms (typically including death) that are side effects of drugs advertised on TV. Even conversations around the water cooler or at family get-togethers often drift toward impending economic doom or a relative's struggle with Alzheimer's. And, always, the underlying message is, 'This could happen to you.'

"The point is — once you start to sensitize your mind to fear messages in your external world, you'll see how ingrained they are in what we read, hear, see, and discuss every day, creating a constant undercurrent of instability."