On Doubt...

Doubt is the worst type of fear. Maybe because it isn't big.  Instead it is small, nagging...insidious.

I'm not talking about the kind of doubt that people have sometimes about facts and figures.  I'm talking about the kind of doubt that makes you question your life.  Are you in the right marriage, job, faith, etc.? I believe that most of the times those doubts surface because we would prefer to externalize the more dangerous doubts about ourselves...Am I loveable, talented, enough...?

Doubt is a type of fear that can destroy--not in a big, grand gesture, but in a tiny chipping away. The weird part is that it questions what is by proposing that it might not be.

Dale Carnegie said, "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage."  I"m not sure in what context he said this but it occurs to me that the thought is true. You can move forward silencing the inner critic of your soul and that act of forward motion can free you.

But maybe a more important ally than action is hope. Hope that the higher things in life are real. That we are more than we seem to be. That the most beautiful parts of reality--and of ourselves--are often hidden.