I celebrated New Year’s Eve in a nightclub. With the rest of Berlin. And the rest of Europe. We sat and watched fireworks off of a bridge and then proceeded to traipse over to a popular club around 1:30 a.m. The same time that a shooter was taking out a cop and a bodyguard in Istanbul, Turkey.

Now, I don’t know about you, but it seems like shootings and terrorism have pervaded our society the same way food poisoning makes its way into your life while you’re on vacation. I don’t mean to make light of it, but to metaphorically demonstrate the way it threatens how we live, the risks we take, and the way we enjoy our lives. It scares us into staying within the confines of our home, our village, the borders of our country. A shooter took 39 lives in a club in Istanbul in a way that has become all too common. We were shouting and shooting off fireworks while people were screaming and jumping into rivers for their own safety.

How much will it take, before we are able, as Obama, Erdogan, Hollande, Gauck, and Theresa Mae (to name a few) have declared, to fight terror to the end?

How long must we live out our lives in fear?

As I walked through the airport in Brussels on my way to Berlin earlier this week, someone whispered in my ear, “Are you sure you want to go there? It’s going to happen again.”

And I have checked my phone in the morning only to see an alert that Amsterdam is next on the hit list and to ‘be on high alert’ too many times.

Less than two weeks earlier, people shopping at a Christmas market in Berlin were taken down as casualties of a war that we cannot seem to win. Last year people were bulldozed over in Nice. Aleppo is burning at the hands of people who believe their destiny is to leave as many casualties as needed to create their own sanctimonious single power. In that Istanbul nightclub, 39 people were shot and killed. 70 people were injured. Bodies were used as launching pads for escape. Clubs are no longer safe. Airports are no longer safe. Christmas markets are not safe. Churches are not safe. Schools are not safe. Public monuments are not safe.

As an American traveling abroad, I get frequent alerts via email from the US Embassy: places to avoid, fear embedded into the words of precaution. In the past, it was easy for me to assume that any sirens on New Year’s Eve were for firework mishaps, or a person with a heart attack from the unexpected boom of a close spark in the sky- but now I second guess myself. My safety, the safety of others. But at some point, when we give into the fear that has been created, that is when we give into terror’s control over us.

Let’s take our time and weep. Let’s mourn for the families of those lost in Istanbul.

But let’s stop blaming a year, an individual person, a global community for how we feel, and let’s get out there and problem solve. We cannot let this become the new normal and live our lives in constant terror. Yes, let’s take precautions to protect ourselves. But, we must not back down from the fight that we are being confronted with. For me, this means not stopping my travels to new places because I am scared. For you, maybe it means finding ways to support the many victims, or bringing attention to your legislators that it’s time to step in and support those who have been directly affected (injured, dislocated, blocked from basic necessities) by these acts of terror.

This is our world.

This is our battle.