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All around us, we see evidence of people cultivating fear. Sometimes, it is intentional.

One day I was parked outside a strip mall in a rough neighborhood. As I walked to my car, a man approached carrying a stick. 鈥淗ey, could you do me a favor?鈥� he asked. 鈥淚鈥檒l give you 10 bucks to take this stick and go beat the hell out of that dog.鈥� He pointed over to where a puppy was tied up in the bed of a pickup. He wanted his dog to fear strangers so it would attack anyone who came near.

His training methods were brutal and most likely effective. They would eventually produce a dog that would regard everyone as a threat. That鈥檚 probably how the dog鈥檚 owner saw the world around him. I wondered how often he was beaten when he was young.

One of the biggest problems with fear is that once it takes hold, it colors the way one perceives everything. The imagined threats multiply, far exceeding the original source. Aggression feels not only excusable but necessary.

Just as you can see fear underlying acts of aggression, you can also see fear underlying the words we use. Political campaigns have become darker and more cynical. The willingness to compromise is widely regarded as a weakness. We want candidates who will fight for us. But it is not just politics. In publications generally, use of the word 鈥渇ight鈥� has increased threefold since 1990.

Anxiety rates worldwide have been increasing steadily since at least 1990. It is even worse if we look at what is happening with young people. For those between the ages of 10 and 24, anxiety disorders rose 52% from 1990 to 2021.

That would be understandable if young people were being exposed to more violence. The amount of civil conflict has increased significantly over the past few years, but it is still lower than in the early 1970s and mid-1980s. Even with extreme levels of violence in Pakistan, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Syria, the world overall is still experiencing a remarkable stretch of relative peace going back to 1946.

What is puzzling about increasing rates of anxiety is that it tends to be highest in the most prosperous and technologically advanced nations. In other words, anxiety is especially high in countries with the lowest levels of political violence.

Anxiety is characterized by persistent fear and worry. What happens to a society gripped by fear is that trust in other people and institutions declines, public discourse becomes more hostile, and political extremism increases. We have witnessed all these things in the United States over the past few decades.

Anger is the emotional counterpart to fear. When we are afraid of somebody or something, our natural response is either to run and hide or to strike out. If you have noticed more anger around you lately, it鈥檚 a pretty good indication of increased fear.

The chief culprit is most likely our growing social disconnection. Fewer people know their neighbors than ever before; membership in churches and service organizations is at an all-time low; people on average have fewer close friends and acquaintances. The result is that more and more people see strangers as potential threats rather than as potential friends.

But something else is happening as well.

As a society, we are no longer deliberately teaching courage as a public virtue. Courage is the antidote to fear. But it is not a natural condition; it must be taught. And one way to teach courage is through encouragement.

The word 鈥渃ourage鈥� comes from the Latin word for heart 鈥� 鈥渃or.鈥� To encourage someone is to give them heart, to help them face their fears without running away or striking out in anger.

To live courageously is to navigate life鈥檚 dangers well, steering between the emotions of fear and anger, neither running away and hiding from nor striking out in response to real or imagined threats. To be courageous requires confidence, and confidence grows when one is secure in the knowledge of being both cared for and useful to others.

We are living in a time when many parents, teachers, and officials are obsessed with safety. We take great measures to ensure that dangers are minimized, that food is inspected, that faulty products are recalled, that airplanes have no defects, that water is safe to drink, that sunscreen is applied to protect one鈥檚 skin.

But most of our efforts to ensure safety address only external threats, they don鈥檛 address our internal condition, our ability to navigate life鈥檚 uncertainties with grace and confidence.

To encourage someone is to do more than to remove external threats, it is to remind them that they are cared for and useful. I see you. I hear you. I care about you. What you do matters. You are important to me. You are important to us.

The best parents, the best coaches, the best managers, the best leaders, do this continually. The worst use fear to manipulate those around them for personal or political gain.

We are living in an age of fear. The proper response to this condition is courage. Do what you can to encourage the people around you today.