I've been thinking a lot about fear, and how fear affects people's lives.

Fear motivates and also inhibits. Too much fear can leave a person stuck in survival mode.

I've been stuck in survival mode for a while. I'm stuck on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs lower levels. I have a lot of fears. *Sigh*

How does one do what Joseph Campbell suggested? Campbell said, "Follow your bliss."

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"If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living." (source)

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I guess Joseph Campbell was saying what Johann Wolfgang Goethe said about committing yourself. Goethe said:

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" . . . the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it." (source)

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I feel Campbell and Goethe were right. I believe spiritual serenity will happen for me when I follow my bliss. I just don't know how to do it . . . how to go past my fears. Maybe that's due to my mental illness? Or maybe I'm making up excuses for my behavior?

Any thoughts on this subject? Agree? Disagree? Don't know?

Have any other quotes to share? I'm reading . . . .