FEAR: SOMETHING TO FEAR

"If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been."

Robert H. Schuller, 20th century American evangelist.

Make that if you only listen to your fears.

Fear alerts us to danger, however, when you are afraid to the point of never acting, it can do more harm than the problem(s) you were attempting to avoid. 

INDECISIVE INACTION

"Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardship of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die."

Seneca (4 BC-65) Roman philosopher/playwright.

Our fear of what may come often outweighs our fear of what is.

While not a solution, remember this, it may help if you become more decisive.

What may come, possibly something worse, will more likely come as a result of you doing nothing.

And given thoughtful planning and action on your part there is a better chance that what will come will be preferable to what is.

I HAD TO THINK AWHILE BEFORE DECIDING TO USE THIS

"I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up."

Mark Twain (1835-1910) U.S. humorist/writer/lecturer

Taking time to think things through is a good thing.

I think.

I'll have to think about that and get back to you.

I FIND THIS HARD TO BELIEVE

"Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool."

Josh Billings

19th century American humorist and lecturer

But only if what you are incredulous about results in you acting, or not, when you should or should not have.

ON SECOND THOUGHT, I'LL POST THIS TOMORROW

"Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried."

Unknown

And BTW this is just as true in your personal life as it is your professional life.

You can hope things will go as you wish but it's up to you to see that they do.

I IMAGINE THAT . . .

"My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened."

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

16th century French philosopher, essayist

More than in the past we do this regarding the future.

Be pessimistic if you must but if it prevents you from acting, you have a serious problem.

You

 

Act when you know you should.

"We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows."

Robert Frost

Late 19th/early 20th century American Poet

And all too often we know the "secret".

Denial is a costly luxury.

Well?

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."

Harriet Beecher Stowe

19th century American writer and philanthropist

If your business, your career, is not going to be the success you originally envisioned, are you really OK with it being because of things you knew you should but never attempted to do?

Do it!

No Movement Is Movement, Backwards

"Least he should wander from the right path, he stands still."

William Hazlitt

18th century British essayist

Inertia

Possibly the most difficult power in the universe to overcome.