The Thoughts of We

A new study suggests that the fear of death may be the number one reason why so many American adults are unhappy with their lives. Why are we so afraid of death? Why do we wallow in the dark fear of the day-to-day life, lie awake at night in the fear of the worst-case scenario, and react to even minor accidents as if they threaten our existence? It seems that death is not only feared by most Americans but also seems to be the cause of much of the unhappiness in their lives.

The end of fear, according to this new research, is possible through education and change. One of the biggest fears that Americans seem to have is that they will not live up to their potential. The ability to do all that they know to do, and more, seem to come naturally to so many of us, but for others, life seems to throw so many curve balls in the direction of what they thought they would achieve, or more importantly, not achieve. Our culture seems to value earning a degree over having real life experience. As a result, most of us end up spending decades or even a lifetime in education-or at least getting a mediocre education-that we don’t achieve anything meaningful in the end.

The problem with this, as the title of this article suggests, is that instead of gaining life changing experiences through education, most of our knowledge ends up locked away in the walls of a classroom, never to be used again. We spend years learning about some theories of how the world works, but the ways in which life works aren’t explained because we refuse to open our eyes. The end result is that we become stuck in an educational rut, unable to think outside of the box. This is the very opposite of what we were really founded on. So, if we want to free ourselves from the fear of death, we need to learn how to break free from this educational rut.