Fear

As the Utah ballroom season has somewhat finished, last night some friends and I watched Strictly Ballroom^#PaidLink. The central theme of the movie is:

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

It’s been a long time since I watched the movie, and honestly I’d forgotten this particular quote. It reminds me of the Bene Gesserit‘s litany against fear in Frank Herbert‘s Dune^#PaidLink series, though it has the benefit of being much shorter and easier to remember.

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.

Regardless of how crazy and insane the world we live in becomes, there is no need to live a life of fear. While the Buddha taught,

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.

I think it more useful to look to Mark Twain‘s approach:

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

Or, the advice given by Boyd K. Packer in his April 2004 General Conference address Do Not Fear:

[We] need not live in fear (see D&C 6:36). Fear is the opposite of faith.

What would have happened had William Kamkwamba given in to his fear? Let us not live in fear, but hope and excitement for the future.