Subway Anxiety

This is going to be quick, I promise.

As I rode the Path and subway this morning, I looked around and was surrounded by people reading newspapers with "MOSCOW SUBWAY BOMBING KILLS DOZENS" sprawled across the top.

This brings up the obvious question: As a person who uses public transportation on a regular basis, how does one deal with these bombings and the threat that it could happen in your city?

Well I will admit that I've asked many people, and I have yet to come across a single Path/subway rider who has not thought about their own potential of landing in such a situation, given the trains they take and at what time of day. They think about their escape route, should the threat of a bombing occur. Unfortunately, in our world, we have to consider these points.

But we don't have to let them control our lives.

We can analyze hypothetical situations, imagining escape routes and the like, but we do not have to act upon any of these thoughts. Because if we act upon them, our lives suddenly become not our own. They become the property of someone else, our actions controlled by the possibility of something that may never (probably won't) ever happen.

It took me a while to get to this point, I'll admit. And there are moments when I can't completely erase the fear from my mind. But every day that I step onto the Path or subway and don't let the numb feeling of fear enter my bones, I know that I'm fighting for something. I'm fighting for control of my own life, my thoughts, my feelings.

And that is something that's worth fighting for.