Fear is a very important survival tool. I just spent a few days reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. Despite the fact that de Becker is a gun-control Liberal (who gives some interesting non-sequitur arguments in support of his Liberal gun control agenda, including an entire appendix on “Gun Safety”, about which he has little useful knowledge), I found a lot of useful information in his book.
If you are in a situation where you are getting an uneasy feeling that something may be wrong, it may be that your subconscious has picked up on a danger signal. You need to figure out what your subconscious is trying to tell you. If your “gut feel” is that you are in serious danger, you probably are, and you need to act on that immediately.
This ties back to something I remember learning from another CHL instructor when he was asked, “How will you know when you really need to shoot?” His answer was, “You’ll know.”
de Becker gives many examples of this in his book. He also gives a basic formula for recognizing the difference between someone who is merely interested in you, and a potentially dangerous stalker. Obviously, the book is intended mostly for women, but I think guys need to read this, too.
One item that he mentioned that doesn’t relate directly to fear, but reinforces something I picked up on nearly two decades ago, is his take on TV news:
“On a personal note, even though I have a professional interest in hazard and risk, I never watch the local television news, and I haven’t for years. Try this and you’ll likely find better things to do before going to sleep than looking at 30 minutes of disturbing images presented with artificial urgency and the usually false implication that is critical for you to see it.”
I heartily agree, but I would have left out the word “usually”.
