On the other side of your fear is your freedom. - Jen Sincero

*The definition of screwing someone over is taking their money and doing a lousy job or destroying their water source or enslaving populations, things like that — your mother being disappointed or your father disapproving or your friends being outraged does not qualify as screwing someone over.

have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened.

The trick is to not only deny the criticism any power over you, but, even more challenging, to not get caught up in the praise. There’s nothing wrong with blushingly accepting a compliment, but if you find yourself always seeking outside approval that you’re good enough or cool enough or talented enough or worthy enough, you’re screwed. Because if you base your self-worth on what everyone else thinks of you, you hand all your power over to other people and become dependent on a source outside of yourself for validation. Then you wind up chasing after something you have no control over, and should that something suddenly place its focus somewhere else, or change its mind and decide you’re no longer very interesting, you end up with a full-blown identity crisis.