Avoid a Life Forged From Fear.

Nelson Mandela could have been talking to you and me directly when he said:

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”

I've always been instinctively allergic to making decisions out of fear. I don't know where that comes from, but I'm glad of it.

I believe that if, in life, you are a sculptor crafting a breathing, vital work of universal art then the sweeps and curves of a life shaped by hope would be more beautiful than the acute-angled life forged from fear.

Seeing threat everywhere makes for smaller, diminished lives. Especially if we act on that fear.

A bird can only fly when it opens its wings.

Courage, confidence and calm can be adopted as habits to the point these qualities become part of who you are.

They enable us to live fully, see clearly, enjoy life and dare to tread our own path.

But to attain we need to overcome.

Anxieties, fears and phobias drag us down and slow us down. We've only got so much time to make life into what it could and can be.

Fear begets anger, hate and depression. When we cast off fear and learn to live free of it (at least in its excessive forms) we help the whole human race because as Nelson Mandela also rightly said:

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Casting off the chains of fear is its own form of emancipation and helps us love and live better to help the whole world.

The more people live courageously the better for everyone in our world. But we all need help sometimes. And the courage to accept it.