I am reminded of this time and time again. How many times have we not done something out of fear? Fear of the uncertain? Fear of failure? Fear of pain? Rejection? Fear itself?
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 -- Dune
The greatest weapon we have is our mind. Human beings have evolved to be the most dominant force on the planet. We fight, fuck, and kill better than anything nature has ever seen. Yet, we are not the strongest force in nature. Truth be told, we are fairly fragile little creatures. We drown. We dehydrate. We freeze. We heatstroke. A single peanut can kill some of us. On an even playing field, even a dog is easily capable of killing a grown man. A lion or a tiger isn't even a contest. We are not particularly fast, we are not particularly strong, we don't have razor sharp teeth or claws. Our sense of sight is strong, but it isn't the strongest, and our other senses are almost laughable when compared to the nose or ears of a dog.
Yet, here we are. The ultimate apex predator. Nothing else even stands a chance. If we were determined to eradicate every other living species off the planet, nothing could stop us except maybe one of our own. What makes such a fragile species such a force to be reckoned with? One thing: the mind.
It is the source of our greatest strength. Greater than the tiger's claws or the rhino's skin. Greater than the plants' ability to make their own food from sunshine. Greater than the rattlesnake's bite. It is so much greater than anything else on the planet that man even considers himself elevated to a place much higher than any other species. The apes are smart, as are the cephalopods, as are the dolphins, but no one realistically considers that they might be smarter than mankind.
And yet, inside this powerful organism lurks its most dangerous weapon: fear. It is the one thing that can stop the mighty human dead in his tracks. It is a relic of a time long past, when man had to be careful. A time when death was a more constant friend and visited often. It is nearly useless today, when the modern world has grown sterile and safe and the visitations of death are more the result of bad luck than they are anything planned.
--The Marine Corps does not want robots. The Marine Corps wants killers. The Marine Corps wants to build indestructible men, men without fear. -- Full Metal Jacket.
To advance in your life, you must remove this fear. It serves you no good in today's world.
Let me stop and prove this to you. Think about something you really wanted, that you passed up because you were afraid to go for it. I don't care if it was a job, a girl, or an opportunity. For me, it was a business I wanted to start back during the dotcom boom. What it was doesn't really matter, what matters is that I didn't do it.
I could give you the dozen reasons I didn't do it, but they all boil down to one thing: fear. Primarily, I was worried about leaving my paying job to start the business I knew would have been a success. It would have required great sacrifice. I might have lost everything. I couldn't do it.
Why? Looking back over a decade later, I can't figure it out. How would my life had been substantially changed if I had just gone for it? It might have failed. I might have lost everything. At most, that would have set me back about a year, maybe two. I would have known within a year if the business would succeed or if I should just fold. I had maybe $50k in assets if I'm being generous. But I also had a six figure job. How long would it really take me to replace those assets? Six months? Seriously? That's what I was afraid of losing?
Sure, my wife might have left ... but she eventually left anyway, for other reasons. Even that ended up not being as big of a deal as it seemed at the time. Someone eventually came along and replaced her and I have a better relationship with them than I ever had with her.
I would have lost my job. ...but I didn't stay at that job either. If the business had failed, I could have gone back in a year and picked up right where I left off. I know, because I've been the manager hiring that guy. Sure, he'd taken a year off, but he showed initiative and risk taking, showed that he was more concerned about what could be done than what couldn't be done. He learned some valuable experience that isn't possible to attain any other way. He failed, but that doesn't mean he's a failure. I want those guys on my team, as does everyone else. You will pick up right where you left off.
If it had succeeded, I wouldn't be working today. I'd be traveling the world and enjoying a lifestyle. But I didn't do that. I succumbed to fear, gained little, and lost a lot.
I won't do that again.
Keep swinging for the fences. Get that one home run. That's all you need.
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