The Gift of Fear

A very tragic story unfolded in an area town a few weeks ago. The owner of a convenience store was kidnapped at gunpoint and murdered. You can read about it here.

I have always heard that you should NEVER let someone take you to a second location as most of the time, you will end up dead. The specialist say that if someone has a gun held on you to run away in a zig-zag pattern as fast as you can as they would most likely miss you if they tried to shoot. One of my friends told me that since she cannot run, she would just fall to the ground. At least that way, her family would not have to be searching for her body.

On Oprah this week, the author of 'The Gift of Fear' was interviewed. He gave some really good pointers. One of those was to take command of the situation. This actually happened at work about a month ago when one of the girls was in the office by herself. In came a young man who asked her if indeed she was by herself. She told him someone was working in the back. He asked her for money and when she said there was none, he became angry! She told him that he needed to move on down the street and maybe someone there could help him. And he did just that.

Gavin de Becker, author of ' The Gift of Fear' stated that by being nice, you can get yourself killed.

I by no means suggest that this convenience store owner could have saved her life. If someone held a gun to my head, I would probably be in shock and not remember any advice as to what action should be taken in such a situation. It is impossible to second guess someones actions. But maybe just knowing in advance what the experts recommend would be helpful.

I never thought about fear being a gift, but paying attention to your senses can save your life.