How am I

I have been thinking again and have come to understand that we should stop believing what we hear and read. When we rode we followed the book Biking the Pacific Coast. It's a great book that tells you the route to take, the places to stay and the stores and need to haves along the way. Another thing it does is tell you the degree of difficulty during the ride. It did a great job of scaring the shit out of you when it came to some hills. About half way through the ride and when all my knee required was more Advil, a morning chocolate donut and a little Bengay (How long?) I found that the book was creating a false sense of fear.
I think it was said that the only thing to fear is fear itself. If I would have paid more attention in school instead of being afraid to succeed I am sure I could have told you who said that. But Dr. Phil isn't reading this and I don't think you have a degree so let's move on.
So let me get to the point already. If you don't check, call, go look or find out for yourself you can't be sure that what you hear is real.
The book said the hills were hard and they weren't, the book said days would be grueling and they weren't.
So with this ground breaking knowledge (not), How am I going to avoid the pitfalls of misinformation. The Fear if you will of taking the path less taken. (I think someone said that before too).
Are things as bad as it seams? Should I stop drop and roll over the future problems? Should I really worry if it's going to rain in San Diego? Are there really no jobs out there? Should I just take it on its word and not look because the book says that the hill is too big?
I don't know, maybe I really do need Dr. Phil to read this.