There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us. We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Seneca
Feedback mechanisms as anticipatory anxiety trigger symptoms which in turn, reinforce the phobia. Paradoxical intention consists of a reversal of attitude. Fear is replaced by a paradoxical wish to experience the anxiety fully, and the wind is taken out of the sails. ~Logotherapy by Victor Frankl
“Want some money?”
“Sure!”
“Here’s some; can I take your picture?”
“Sure.”
“Smile!”
You’ll find that most paintings of players playing chess have a cat somewhere in the scene. This one has a wooden lion and a spider.
There was an indescribably hideous monster standing quietly behind him.
Arthur yawed wildly as his skin tried to jump one way and his skeleton the other, whilst his brain tried to work out which of his ears it most wanted to crawl out of.
“Bet you weren’t expecting to see me again,” said the monster.
Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams
At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul:
one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it;
the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man’s power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events.
Therefore, better to disregard what is painful till it comes.
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Everything is condensed into one single moment. It decides our life.
FRANZ KAFKA
Be Aware of Your Routines
Then Break Them