Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Why Choose Fear?

"I'm a New Yorker. Fear's my life" -- or so it was said in Rent

I've been reading and listening to things that relate to fear lately.

  • Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford
  • Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War (he also happens to be working on a book with 50 Cent)
  • Who Moved My Cheese (apparently now comes in a kids version as well)

Basically, it goes like this: fear (especially fear of change) stops you from being happy. But if you create the fear that remaining idle is much worse than changing, you won't be idle and you won't be afraid, and you'll be much happier than your boring old frightened self.

Fear certainly has its function. It is natural after all and it can keep us out of some pretty sticky situations. But if you never get sticky, you'll probably never taste honey. And who would want that?

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