Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I know what it is like to experience terror, to feel despondent, to live in fear. I know how wearying and hopeless life can be sometimes.
Most of us experience a life full of wonderful moments and difficult moments. But for many of us, even when we are most joyful, there is fear behind our joy.
I know from personal experience how fear and low self worth can cripple one's ability to succeed in life. But with a little support, caring and inspiration, miracles can happen.
I was kind of a scaredy-cat as a kid, and I made a very deliberate decision at some point that I was not going to let fear rule my life or determine my experience. That wasn't so easily accomplished.
I actually had an experience where I thought somebody was breaking into my house. That's got to be the most terrified I've ever been in my life. I don't know if that's saying much. The fear, especially as a female in a house by yourself, was horrible.
Without fullness of experience, length of days is nothing. When fullness of life has been achieved, shortness of days is nothing. That is perhaps why the young have usually so little fear of death; they live by intensities that the elderly have forgotten.
Feeling earthquakes was part of growing up, and also preparing for them: doing earthquake drills, or having earthquake supplies. The looming feeling was part of my life. My experience of earthquakes has always been more the fear of them, or the possibility.
While being a parent has been the most fulfilling experience of my life, it comes with a price. Besides the onslaught of worries and fears that can be paralyzing, more personally there is a struggle with identity, or the fear of loss or usurpsion of identity, if that makes sense.
The first of the four noble truths of Buddhism, that there is suffering in life, was enormously important to me. No one had ever said it out loud. That had been my experience, of course, but no one had ever talked about it. I didn't know what to do with all the fear and emotions within, and here was the Buddha saying this truth right out loud.