Did you ever play the game where you sit with friends around the table, one person whispers a little story into someone’s ear and it is passed on and on until it returns to the original story teller?  Somehow, during the transfer, the story experiences a metamorphosis and is hardly recognizable when it returns.

In 1980,  Ted Turner pioneered 24-hour news broadcast, and for the good and bad of it, we are being served.   Since 9/11, we anxiously feed off the news provided to us  at ‘the speed of sound,’ but unless it’s breaking news, we are being fed the same stuff with different slants all day and all night.

When you first hear ‘the story’ you are set on edge.  But as the story goes around the table it is amplified, adjusted and augmented.

It’s hard not to project fear into your upcoming trip.  But no one should go blindly on a world adventure.  Do your homework. Before you set sail or spread your wings,  check with the US State Department for updated travel alerts: https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings.html

There are places you should not go.  Outside those places, your risk of dying from terrorism is one in 20 million, far exceeding your risk of being struck by lightning, which is one in 5.5 million.

Next week I’ll help you face a few more fears and give you the scoop on Ebola, the Zika Virus, concern over doctors and hospital care for your family, medicines,  fear of the food and the fear of ‘strangers.’

Like Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”      (March 4, 1933)