Sometimes I’m fearless

but not all the time. So, I’m getting this book:

Some excerpts I liked from the Introduction:

“Fearless women come in all shapes, forms, ages, and professions. As Shakespeare put it, “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.”

So, ironically, the woman who appears well adapted may be the one who has simply become most comfortable being governed by her fears, while the “neurotic” one is still gamely struggling to reach fearlessness.

Whew! I’m good then.

Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. Rather, it’s the mastery of fear. Courage, my compatriot Socrates argues, is the knowledge of what is not to be feared. Which is to say, there are things we should be afraid of – we want to stay alive, after all. We will never completely eliminate fear from our lives, but we can definitely get to the point where our fears do not stop us from daring to think new thoughts, try new things, take risks, fail, start again, and be happy.

Fearlessness is about getting up one more time than we fall down. The more comfortable we are with the possibility of falling down, the less worried we are of what people will think if and when we do, the less judgmental of ourselves we are every time we make a mistake, the more fearless we will be, and the easier our journey will become.

I should be damn fearless by now because it seems I have spent my whole life getting up and starting over. I fear I’m not there yet though.

Since fear is such a primal reaction, making the choice to move forward despite fear is an evolved decision that transcends our animal nature.

…speaking out is almost always better than silence.

Okay, I have that one down for the most part.