Are you afraid of aging? Emotions, like fear, are part of our human survival wiring. They compel us to act. When something scares us, we switch into autopilot safety/survival mode. Even what we might think of as an absence of action, such as the “freeze” response to fear, is an action. Emotions are designed to make us do something about our situation, which may include crawling under the covers for a week. If all we do is react, though, and never examine what our emotions are telling us or address them constructively, we will continue on autopilot even if the autopilot is steering us into a mountain.