Don't Hold Back

"When I was a Boy Scout, we played a game when new Scouts joined the troop. We lined up chairs in a pattern, creating an obstacle course through which the new Scouts, blindfolded, were supposed to maneuver. The Scoutmaster gave them a few moments to study the pattern before our adventure began. But as soon as the victims were blindfolded, the rest of us quietly removed the chairs. I think life is like this game. Perhaps we spend our lives avoiding obstacles we have created for ourselves and in reality exist only in our minds. We're afraid to apply for that job, take violin lessons, learn a foreign language, call an old friend, write our Congressman - whatever it is that we would really like to do but don't because of personal obstacles. Don't avoid any chairs until you run smack into one. And if you do, at least you'll have a place to sit down."--Pierce Vincent Eckhart

On The Road with Dave

My friend Dave posted the above on his blog under the title "Sunday Thoughts". I think it's a pretty good thought for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday too.

As social entrepreneurs we are in a position to save real lives today, but to do that we must risk potential rejection. Sometimes our ego's can build potential rejection into a major mental obstacle. If we don't learn to negotiate that obstacle real children will starve, and our own business enterprise will fail. The business consequence you experience may be just, but children starving is not (Nourish the Children - Click Here).

Don't let fear keep you down. Don't let fear dominate your life. Don't let fear starve innocent children.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.~Marie Curie Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop.~Usman B. Asif

Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others.~Robert Louis Stevenson Panic at the thought of doing a thing is a challenge to do it.~Henry S. Haskins The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.~Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken

There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.~George S. Patton Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them. ~Brendan Francis There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.~Andre Gide

There is much in the world to make us afraid. There is much more in our faith to make us unafraid.~Frederick W. Cropp Fear is faith that it won't work out. ~Sister Mary Tricky Fear is the lengthened shadow of ignorance.~Arnold Glasow

TweedyFear is the highest fence.~Dudley Nichols To lead by example is difficult when you're a follower of fear.~T.A. Sachs To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.~Katherine Paterson

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.~Bertrand Russell Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day. ~Brendan Francis He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who fear life are already three parts dead.~Bertrand Russell Fear makes us feel our humanity.~Benjamin Disraeli A cheerful frame of mind, reinforced by relaxation... is the medicine that puts all ghosts of fear on the run.~George Matthew Adams

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.~Samuel Butler Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.~German Proverb If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all thinking, damages his personality and makes him a landlord to a ghost.~Lloyd Douglas

Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?~Maurice Freehill I would sort out all the arguments and see which belonged to fear and which to creativeness. Other things being equal, I would make the decision which had the larger number of creative reasons on its side.~Katharine Butler Hathaway He who fears something gives it power over him.~Moorish Proverb

Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.~Author Unknown Fear can be headier than whiskey, once man has acquired a taste for it.~Donald Dowes The wise man in the storm prays God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1833

Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile... initially scared me to death.~Betty Bender I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change.... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.~Erica Jong The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid. ~Lady Bird Johnson

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