“Listen—are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” ― Mary Oliver
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” – Nelson Mandela
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. “ – Plato
“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” – Carrie Fisher
“Speaking in front of a crowd is the number 1 fear of the average person. Number 2 is death. This means that to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.” – Jerry Seinfeld
“Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” – Viktor Frankl
“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, first inaugural address (1933)
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” – Mark Twain
“The identity of fear is separateness. Fear is the movement away from the center of your Self. It is the experience of being separate. When you exist outside of your present moment, you become fear, and it becomes the constant story of your life.” – Cheri Huber
“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it”. – Aung San Suu Kyi
“The power of fear” by Seth Godin
Fear will push you to avert your eyes.
Fear will make you think you have nothing to say.
It will create a buzz that makes it impossible to meditate…
or it will create a fog that makes it so you can do nothing but meditate.
Fear seduces us into losing our temper.
And fear belittles us into accepting unfairness.
Fear doesn’t like strangers, people who don’t look or act like us, and most of all, the unknown.
It causes us to carelessly make typos, or obsessively look for them.
Fear pushes us to fit in, so we won’t be noticed, but it also pushes us to rebel and to not be trustworthy, so we won’t be on the hook to produce.
It is subtle enough to trick us into thinking it isn’t pulling the strings, that it doesn’t exist, that it’s not the cause of, ‘I don’t feel like it.’
When in doubt, look for the fear
“Litany Against Fear” from Dune by Frank Herbert
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain
What Room Does Fear Have?
A poem by Jon Jorgensen
Afraid that what I WAS
would continually dictate what I AM
and that who I WOULD BE
MUST BE someone who I didn’t like very much at all.
As if there was no such thing as being made new.
I used to be afraid of opinions.
Afraid that, though words could not break my bones,
They certainly could shatter my dreams.
rather than for the glory of one
Afraid of losing
Afraid of falling
Afraid of being wrong, creating busts, looking absolutely stupid
because who am I to try and make a difference.
the laying down of stepping stones
on the road to success.
And by that I mean I researched and researched and researched
over and over again.
And in all of my researching I kept coming up with the same exact question:
What room does fear have?
What room does fear have
when I lean on hope?
What room does fear have
when I search for something more?
When I realize what’s good and I stand in awe
When I run with perserverance
When I walk by faith
and when I rest in comfort?
What room does fear have
when I sing with praise
when I take hold of inspiration
explore possibility and step into freedom
when I discover strength
embrace courage
remember peace
declare truth
choose joy
experience life
and conquer death
What room does fear have
when I find perfection
in the one place I never thought to look:
in weakness
What room does fear have?
when I step out of the darkness
and I bask in the light
When I let the past be the past
and the future has no limit.
When they can talk all they want
but their opinion doesn’t matter
When failure is nothing more and nothing less than
the road by which I walk my path to success?
I’ll ask you one more time:
What room does fear have
When I make room for love?
