True independence means being free from the domination of your own internal automatic behaviors, not doing what you feel like when the urge strikes. - Nicholas Lore

A passionately lived life is not always comfortable. Going for it involves being open to all of life - the joys, the sorrows, the mundane as well as the magic, the splendid victories, the most abject defeats. You might even stop closing your eyes during the scary parts of the movie.

How can someone say they’re successful if they’re not happy doing their work?

It takes courage to be the author of your life. When you are struggling through one of the difficult parts of turning your dreams into reality, you may wonder why you always get stuck with having to put up with so much fear and uncertainty. Why, you wonder, couldn't I feel more courageous, like those other people do. You don't feel courageous because courage is not an emotion. There is no such thing as feeling "courageous". It is an imaginary emotion. Courage consists of doing what you said you would do even when you don't want to. In the face of danger you have a choice to be the delegate of either your commitments or your feelings. It's as simple and as difficult as that.