When we are stuck in safety, we confuse the fatigue of simultaneously trying for and resisting our goals with the energy and effort that would otherwise be going powerfully toward achieving them.

Not one of us will know the pressure that Lincoln did, but the lesson of taking a bird's eye view on our lives is priceless for overcoming fear and anxiety -- no matter how small the issue is.

A tottering old bus, something of a chicken coop on wheels, screeched to a stop where I waited hand-in-hand with my mother. I was about to take my fir...

Donna Pincus, director of the Child and Adolescent Fear and Anxiety Treatment Program at Boston University and the author of "Growing Up Brave: Expert...

Like the rest of us, therapists tend to see courage as some sort of mythic power, existing only in heroes who are beyond human fear. Heroes like that exist only in the movies. Real courage occurs in normal human beings -- people with the same fears we all have.

Fear can be extremely negative. Fear keeps us from living our dreams, makes us scared of people who are different, creating war and racism. It lies to us about our potential. We want to be fearless, right?

I guess you could say that I got this Becoming Fearless editor gig by making the study of fearlessness a lifetime habit ... People who haven't skydived sometimes ask me if that's the scariest thing I've ever done. Here's what I tell them: "No. That's just fear of dying. Fear of living is much, much scarier."

Just as songs are to be shared, not merely sung, life is to be lived, not merely survived. So live while you're alive; let 2012 be a year filled with bravery, rather than safety.

Does our society create grand expectations that exemplify bravery and courage as the only acceptable response to an illness crisis?

We really all should be committed to taking care of one another - we're not even six degrees of separation away. We're barely one crossed wire away.