The only thing that might make me stay in bed would be fear. Once I get rest, then I can overcome the fear of a given day and then I'm ready. I'm ready to go. Not that I always have that fear, but sometimes that's the only thing that would keep me in bed more than just the laziness.
I have no fear, no fear at all. I wake up, and I have no fear. I go to bed without fear. Fear, fear, fear, fear. Yes, 'fear' is a word that is not in my vocabulary.
The thing is, the more you fear death, the more you die. So it really doesn't pay off. It's a fear of the dark. Like any experience in life, you wonder, Well, if this ever happens, how would I react? and then it happens, and only then do you know.
Fear! Fear again, for the first time since his 'teens. Fear, that he thought he would never know any more. Fear that no weapon, no jeopardy, no natural cataclysm, has ever been able to inspire until now. And now here it is running icily through him in the hot Chinese noon. Fear for the thing he loves, the only fear that can ever wholly cow the reckless and the brave.
So the Dark did a simple thing. They showed the maker of the sword his own uncertainty and fear. Fear of having done the wrong thing--fear that having done this one great thing, he would never again be able to accomplish anything of great worth--fear of age, of insufficiency, of unmet promise. All such great fears, that are the doom of people given the gift of making, and lie always somewhere in their minds.
Hope, and fear. Twin forces that tugged at us first in one direction and then in another, and which was the stronger no one could say. Of the latter we never spoke, but it was always with us. Fear, constant companion of the peasant. Hunger, ever at hand to jog his elbow should he relax. Despair, ready to engulf him should he falter. Fear; fear of the dark future; fear of the sharpness of hunger; fear of the blackness of death.
I've always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people. So I've always said 'yes' to the thing I'm most scared about. The fear of letting myself down - of saying 'no' to something that I was afraid of and then sitting in my room later going, 'I wish I'd had the guts to say this or that' - that galvanizes me more than anything.
I never looked at basketball as work. I always enjoyed it as my hobby. I loved it. Once that love is gone, and I'm tired of working out every day and doing all the stuff to get me ready for games, and I'm tired of lifting and conditioning and doing all that other stuff around it, and I'd rather stay in bed, then it's time to go.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. So the only thing to really be afraid of is if you don't go get your mammograms.
Fear is about survival. When you drop under that and experience the fear without trying to change it, just letting it be, then it becomes still. When you open your heart to fear, rather than trying to fight it or deny it or even overcome it, then you find it is just energy.
To allow the fear to come on you and then pass through. If you keep cutting the fear off by intervening - let's say, taking a Xanax to try to cure it - you'll never understand what fear is really for. Fear is part of a survival mechanism. The way you conquer fear is to feel it all the way, and then you'll find out that there's nothing there - it's just emotion.
Five Truths
about
Fear Truth
1. The fear
will never
go away as
long as I continue
to grow. Truth 2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it. Truth 3. The only way to feel better about myself is to go out… and do it. Truth 4. Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else. Truth 5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.
Once a week, I might stay late at work. It's sometimes very efficient to work until 7 P.M. - and then come home to kids who are clean and ready for bed. Those days are good.
I sometimes think that courage is the thing that you need more than any other thing. It's fear that cripples us. It's fear that accounts for racism, it's fear that accounts for sexism, for xenophobia.
Fear cannot touch me…
It can only taunt me,
It cannot take me,
Just tell me where to go…
I can either follow,
Or stay in my bed…
I can hold on
To the things that I know…
The dead stay dead,
They cannot walk.
The shadows are darkness.
And darkness cannot talk
If you want to develop courage, do the thing you fear and keep on
doing it until you have a record of successful experiences behind you. That is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear. You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.
Remember, the only thing to fear is Fear, and - well, don't even fear Fear, for he's a cowardly chap at the best, who will run if you show a brave front.