“A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” – John Augustus Shedd
Here we are again, somehow—the end of another year. For some of us, it’s been a good year filled with many blessings that we will look back on with fondness. For others who may have experienced the loss of a loved one, illness, separation or divorce, alienation by family members, or financial difficulties, we are happy to see this year end.
Despite some bumps in the road the last couple of months, I can confidently say 2025 was a good one for me. As I reflect on the good and the bad, however, I realize that it is not always the external forces acting on our lives that bring us joy or sadness. It is how we process and deal with these events. And for me the absolute worst reaction, the worst feeling, is fear.
Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of humiliation. Fear of loss. Fear of being disappointed. Fear of disappointing others. All these fears serve as chains that bind us. They keep us from taking action, from trusting others, from doing something we’ve never done before. They prevent us from having hope that things will get better.
How do we fight it? How do we find courage in the face of fear? Our instinct is to take shelter inside ourselves, to isolate and fortify our hearts, building a wall to keep everyone and everything out, so that nothing can hurt us. But what if what we really need to do is the opposite? What if the key to dealing with fear is counterintuitive? What if, instead, we need to open ourselves, to make ourselves even more vulnerable? What if the only way to get over our fears is to embrace them and share them with others?
I have always loved to write, but I never told anyone about it. For years I kept it to myself, thinking it was for me and that there was no point in telling someone else about my dream to be a published author. Nothing was ever going to come of it, anyway, so why bother saying anything about it?
I was a year or two shy of forty when, for reasons I don’t even remember, I told my sister-in-law who was visiting my idea for a novel. She was kind and encouraging, and she told me to send her the chapters as I wrote them. So, I did—I wrote them, and I sent them to her. She read them, she gave me feedback, and I kept writing. I finished that book, and eventually (many years later) that book became the fifth book I published, Timeless.
Telling my sister-in-law about my literary aspirations seemed to open the floodgates for me—I started telling everyone about my dream. And do you know what happened? No one laughed. In fact, I found that I wasn’t alone. A partner in another office of my law firm at the time told me his wife had recently published her first novel, so I reached out to her. She introduced me to a writers’ conference in Atlanta, so I attended that conference (with my sweet sister-in-law) and met a number of published authors and aspiring writers. I shared my dreams with them, too, and each of them helped me in some way. And here I am. Not yet where I want to be but getting closer every day.
Fear is natural. It is human. It means you are living. Like ships, we were not built to stay in our safe harbors. Whatever you are dealing with, share it with someone. If the person you shared it with doesn’t help you, share it with someone else. You will find you are not alone, and just knowing that helps immeasurably.
As we enter the holiday season and anticipate the start of a new year, let us remember that we are stronger than our fears. We were built to overcome them. And, with the support of those around us, we will.
- Kathryn Amurra