Odds of Dying: What You Should Really Fear
We tend to underestimate serious risks and let minor threats loom ridiculously large
If you fear dying in a plane crash, a shark attack, a bombing or a violent home invasion — or some other statistically unlikely event — join the crowd. People all over the world harbor irrational or at least outsized fears over numerous ways of departing this world that are highly unlikely to ever befall the average individual.
The odds of dying are pretty high, granted. But the odds of dying by the things we tend to fear the most often border on infinitesimal.
Why do we obsess over the unlikely?
Dramatic, scary and deadly events garner big headlines, flood the evening news and clog our social media feeds. They often come with vivid images — whether real and conjured in our frightened minds — that stick with us far more readily than the thought of someone dying of heart disease or cancer, the two leading causes of human demise, or a simple fall — the leading cause of fatal injuries among older people.
“We are more likely to die falling in our bathrooms than by being murdered by terrorists or in an airplane crash, but people probably never see news about someone falling in their bathrooms and dying,” explains Sheldon Solomon, PhD, a…
