We are living our lives in fear. Fear of the internal and the external. We think that by working to remove the fear of the external, we can somehow beat the internal. But this behaviour is the equivalent to wallpapering over a live electric wire: it will always sting when we touch it even slightly.
When you commit to removing the external fear you are just covering up your internal fear. What’s more, the commitment to removing the external fear is a never-ending, never-satisfying empty pursuit. It usually consists of desiring money, power, fame and fortune, but none of these things ever satisfy you — and they never deal with internal fear.
So instead, work directly on your internal fear: the fear of your own thoughts, doubts and emotions. Once you learn to deal with, not remove – for removing fear is an impossible thing unless you are a psychopath — your internal fear, and you become comfortable with it, everything external will no longer matter. You’ll no longer chase superfluous things. Superfluous things which, at the core, you strove for in order to have the very things you can achieve on your own — an elated state of mind, tranquility and contentment. These things can only truly be achieved with direct work on your internal state of mind.
If you must, use fear as fuel, but don’t ever try to remove it; for it will always be there, and so spending energy trying to rid yourself of it is a futile pursuit. We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them. Or below them. Why? Because fear — like all emotions — is natural. Trying to get rid of it is working directly against nature, which is of course, never a wise thing to do.
Be comfortable with doubt, fear and uncertainty, and you’ll prepare yourself for anything life throws towards you.
As Richard Feynman said, “doubt is essential.”
It really is.
