Fear and Perspective: No One Asked "Do I Look Fat in these Jeans?" on 9/11

There is a special poignancy to starting a tour for a book about fearlessness -- which I am today-- on the five-year anniversary of one of the most fear-filled days in all of our lives. It underscores my belief that fearlessness is not the absence of fear, but rather the mastery of fear. It's all about getting up one more time than we fall down.

And while there is passionate disagreement about the direction of America's long-term response to 9/11 -- and the political and social opportunities squandered in its wake -- there is no question that the immediate response was our nation at its best. Getting up one more time than we fell down; reexamining our lives and resetting our priorities; volunteering and sacrificing; refusing to be cowed by our enemies; refusing to let our lives be dictacted by fear.

My countryman Socrates said that courage is the knowledge of what is not to be feared. And so often in our lives the things we are most afraid of are actually little more than shadow and fog, illusory manifestations of our free-floating anxieties. As Montaigne put it: "There were many terrible things in my life, but most of them never happened."

Unfortunately, it often takes a crisis to bring some much-needed perspective to our lives, to clarify what is real and what is not. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the world around us appeared to be collapsing, we weren't afraid whether we looked fat in those jeans or terrified how our boss would react if we asked for that raise. The challenge lies in learning how we can bring that sense of perspective and fearlessness into our everyday lives even without a crisis -- whether that crisis is a giant public one like 9/11 or an intimate personal one like an illness or the death of a loved one.

Because, after all, character is destiny and we are the ones who can take whatever life brings us and turn it into something that instead of crushing us, strengthens us. But only if we don't let our fears stop us. And only if we are vigilant in our pursuit of fearlessness. Over the course of my life, I've learned that fearlessness is like a muscle -- the more we exercise it the more natural it feels to not let our fears run (and ruin) our life.

Looking back on 9/11 from five years down the road, it's disheartening to see how quickly we've fallen back on many of our old habits. Remember how that horrible day was supposed to change things forever?

And for a while it did. The media abandoned their obsession with JonBenet, Gary Condit, and shark attacks and did an exemplary job of keeping us informed. Our political leaders set aside petty squabbles and put the national interest first. And our navel-gazing culture collectively glanced up, finally focusing on the needs of others.

In many ways, the period following 9/11 was the best of times amidst the worst of times. It would be a nice tribute to those whose lives didn't continue past that day to say that the change lasted, but, sadly, it didn't.

The political atmosphere is more polluted with vitriol than ever before. The media are back to round-the-clock coverage of salacious lowest-common-denominator stories like that of John Mark Karr. And, as a nation, we have gone back to sweating all the little things. Our commitment to altruism and perspective turned out to have a limited shelf-life.

In the days and weeks following 9/11, our leaders did everything in their power to convince us that the best way to do our part in the fight against terrorism was to return as quickly as possible to our normal lives. And regrettably they've gotten their wish.

Maybe we can use the occasion of this five-year anniversary to renew the values and spirit that came to the fore after the attacks. Call it the spirit of 9/12. It would be the greatest way to honor the memory of those who lost their lives that day.