But why is fear such a huge part of our lives?

BEING HUMAN MEANS A SIMPLE LIFE WITH GOOD FAITH AND ACTION

But why is fear such a huge part of our lives?

The answer is in the structure of the brain. The

brain stem, which we share with lizards, is the

part with the fight/flight/freeze response. Our

ancestors needed this part for the dangerous

situations they encountered before we all

started building houses and living safe, cushy

lives indoors. If a big, hungry animal is after

you, you don’t have time to ponder, you need

the fear instinct to kick in with fight, flee, or

freeze, immediately! This reaction is out of

place in modern life, when the most dangerous

thing most of us face is probably a stapler, but

we still have the brain stem looking at

everything with fear, because that’s what it’s

built for.

In addition to the brain stem, we also have the

amygdala, which we share with other

mammals. The amygdala stores all of our bad

memories and looks for patterns of things to

be afraid of. Again, this was handy when

people needed to notice the rustle of grass that

meant a tiger was stalking, but not so great in

the cubicle farm, especially since the amygdala

triggers the endocrine system to release stress

hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. You

need these hormones if you’re running from a

tiger, but in modern life, they mostly just make

you more likely to have a heart attack.

These two parts of the brain do the fear

processing. Basically, they generate

unhappiness. Luckily, we don’t have let them

rule our lives—we have other brain parts that

can override them