Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” Given the world we live in today, it doesn’t seem as though these words are easy to live by. Humans have used science to create bombs that could wipe out the entire living population as we know it, and they have assembled guns equipped to riddle hundreds with bullets at the pull of a trigger. We have bred communists, terrorists, rapists and any number of “-ists” whose minds are seemingly unhinged and dangerous.

The reality, however, is that FDR was and remains to be correct in his statement. Due to the overabundance of life-threatening dangers in our world, there is no use expending energy cowering in fear of their presence. The truth is, no matter where you live or travel to in the world, these evils are very much at large. So there is no use in letting them deter you from doing what you want to do and being where you want to be.

Before I left for Europe, I had concerned friends and relatives frantically contacting me requesting I be safe and extra cautious of my surroundings, as Europe has seen travesties that have marked it “unsafe” in recent months. Yet, while in Europe, the first major catastrophe I heard happened right here, in the United States. The mass murder that was the Orlando nightclub shooting shocked the world. How could something so real and so tragic happen in our own backyard?

The reality, though, is that the technologies that we face everyday, have the capacity to destroy our lives as we know it. With the invention of the nuclear bomb, we were able to figure out a riddance of human life in a matter of seconds. The threat upon our lives has been prevalent for years now, but only in recent years has it sincerely stricken those whom it wasn’t believed to have touched.

If you live your life in fear of that which is capable of ending all that you know, you are not living life to the fullest. The fears that constantly surround us and consume our lives are at large in every arena we enter; this is no battle between rich and poor, between strong and weak. We face these fears because we are human, and will continue to do so until we breathe our last breath. It is ultimately up to us how we spent our last moments. Live each day to the fullest, for each may be your last. But don’t hold out, for you may regret that which you may have had.