Laura Young on Fear vs Trust

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgment that there is something more important than fear
~Ambrose Redman

Laura, over on The Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life, has written an interesting article titled On Fear vs. Trust . It makes for thought-provoking reading.

Here's a small extract: So what if the way you define success isn't the same way the culture at large defines it and has been marketing it to you? Have you been allowed to really look at the question of what YOU want with a blank sheet in front of you?

If you are already at midlife, or a few years down a certain path, chances are that getting a blank sheet is going to be difficult to do. You likely have commitments, bills, a social circle based on a certain lifestyle and family members invested in the status quo. The general fears of change that we all carry to some degree and the cultural admonitions against wanting more than the "real world" is likely to give you can turn to real fears of actual costs pretty quickly.

If this cycle of fear is left unchecked, one can quickly slide into resignation. Personally, it was fear that I would fail if I left the nest that kept me in a restricting job for many years. Fear that was fed by lots of folks saying things like, 'it's not any better anywhere else!'. When we don't know what the answer is to get out of our psychological funk many of us tend to "let it ride" and stop talking about it (if we ever started), hoping that the phase will pass.