How to cope with fear in 2017: Turn off the news

Larry King: How about fear? For example, you see a shooting everyday. Terrorism. How about living with fear of someone coming to harm us? Isn’t fear unhappiness? How do I overcome fear?

Mitra Rahbar: I mean, fear definitely feeds on happiness. And fear is where there’s the absence of love and security and peace, and how do we overcome this, is the big question. Now, first I want to say Larry that we, the world is not new to the acts of violence, it’s just that we are nowmore aware of it because of the computer age. There has always been violence. There have always been acts of terror against people. But how do we overcome it and how do we not let our fear define us, is the key. And that’s where we go into, what I have to believe the positiveness of any circumstance, and see through that, how we can channel a good energy, a good light.

Larry King: What part Pico, does the media play in this?

Pico Iyer: Well, as I was listening to Mitra I was thinking, like you I’ve been in this job a long itme, and sotomorrowfor example, six and a half billion people will probably be really kind to their neighbors, and three won’t. And you and I know in the news business, they’ll focus on that three. So I think anybody who’s fearful is paying too much attention to the news and forgetting that the news is about exceptional things, and the regular things of people being kind to one another never feature in the news and the fact that they don’t feature…

Larry King: All news is generally bad until cancer is cured.

Pico Iyer: If it leads it leads, precisely, yes. And I think one of the things with fear is it’s based on the unknown. What we think is going to happen an hour from now, we don’t know what’s going to happen, I could be fearful of somebody hitting me when I leave this room, somebody’s probably going to be very kind to me when I leave this room. So why don’t I concentrate on what’s happening right here, which isn’t fearful. I’m talking to two friends and having a good time.

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