It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

Dale Carnegie

This is so obvious and yet so many of us are still torturing ourselves every day because we don’t have what we want, we aren’t who we feel we ought to be, and we think that’s the reason we’re unhappy. In reality we’re unhappy because we’re thinking about the fact that we don’t have what we want and are not who we feel we ought to be. If we were thinking instead about something that amuses us we might be smiling or laughing. It is indeed what we’re thinking that controls what we’re feeling. If you want to feel good, think good thoughts. If you’re feeling bad it’s because you’re thinking about something that makes you feel that way so why not close the door on the depressing thoughts? Why not think about something that inspires you instead?

Thinking can be as much destructive as constructive, and practicing constructive thinking will be far more beneficial than cultivating and nurturing a habit for destructive thinking. Don’t sit around torturing yourself unnecessarily.

You can’t be afraid to take chances in life otherwise you’ll go only as far as your fear will take you; and since fear is not a positively rooted condition, fear cannot move you in a positive direction.

Fear can only cripple you and subject you to remaining where you are or send you running away from whatever it is you fear. And any time you are running away from something, you’re not facing it which means it has power over you even while you’re cringing in your protective shell avoiding a confrontation with it.

From Franklin Delanor Roosevelt’s inaugural speech - So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Are you so afraid of failing that you refuse to take a chance and go after your dreams just so you can avoid possible ridicule? What if success is what awaits you rather than failure? Is your fear of failure stronger than your desire to fulfill your dream? Will you refuse to take a chance on yourself just because you don’t want to deal with the possibility that things might not work out the way you want them to? You might fail even after you’ve put in 100% effort, that’s always a possibility; but you might also succeed. However on the opposite of that is the reality that if you never try in the first place you’ll never know the outcome. At least if you try and fail you can give yourself full credit for taking the chance instead of allowing fear to cripple you.