There was much fear and worry when I grew up during the cold war years. It didn't really affect our daily lives, but there was always a little nagging doubt in the back of your mind. When one of your parents disappears for a week or so "on exercise" and comes back home in full combat gear, it did bring home the fact that we were living on the edge. WW3 was always there.
When the Berlin wall came down and the various former Soviet-bloc countries returned from the "dark side", there was a wee bit of hope that there might just be world peace in my lifetime, but then we decided that Saddam was the Enemy, and we got a whole new set of Baddies instead of those pesky Russians.
I'm pragmatic enough to realise that my demise will likely be a result of my own unhealthy life choices, but as long as there are still nuclear weapons in existence and leaders such as Trump, Putin (and May) around, we're definitely not out of the woods.