Keep Your Fears To Yourself – Robert Louis Stevenson

Keep your fears to yourself: Contrary to common beliefs – fears have a purpose. A problem shared might be a problem halved, but only if both people are working on the problem. Being afraid, however, doesn’t reduce by sharing. It can increase. Be careful while sharing your terrors. As Robert Lous Stevenson says – keep your fears to yourself. Instead, share courage, optimism and help. These have a better way of giving you the desired results.

We will go through the following aspects in our debate:

  • Meaning of – Keep your fears to yourself
  • Why you shouldn’t share your frights
  • Understanding the meaning of your fear and overcoming it

Keep Your Fears To Yourself Meaning

As we try to unpick the meaning of – keep your fears to yourself, it is very important to understand its message. Our emotions have a strong way of conveying something to us. Most times, people ask us to ignore fear because it isn’t real. I agree, that fear is not real but the danger is.

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Keep your fears to yourself

However, this fright is pointing us to danger. We can’t just ignore it. The best thing we can do is to prepare and find a way to resolve it. The danger in sharing fear is that it multiplies. Fear has energy just like every other emotion. The more we dwell on the fear, it increases. Instead, find a way to tackle it and address its concerns.

Share your courage: The quote compels you to share your courage and optimism. Just like fear, courage also multiplies. It gives you the much-needed energy to focus on things that matter the most to you. Don’t let fear discourage you from your goals. They’re not a distraction or something to be avoided. But dwelling on it can be a painful waste of time.

Share your courage with others

Fear is a dangerous thing! It makes us imagine all the terrible things that may not come true. It loosely relates to the quote – worry is a rocking chair! Unfortunately, fear alone will not get you anywhere. The problem with sharing your terrors is that it doesn’t reduce them!

Fear has a way of growing with every conversation about it. The best way to tackle fear is by doing something about it. The moment you share fears, all you get is sympathy and unwanted attention. That doesn’t get you results.

Keeping fears to ourselves

I think the best way to respond to your fears is to understand what they’re saying. We’re taught to ignore the fear or distract ourselves. You see, fear has a better purpose. It is trying to prepare us for something by telling us that something might go wrong. You won’t be able to get rid of all these fears, but you can do something to mitigate them. And in some cases, the action is as simple as accepting fears.

I’ll recommend going through the compilation – on how to overcome fears to make the best use of them. Don’t ignore your fears, they are useful. But don’t fall into the trap of converting it into worry.

Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others

Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes

7 thoughts on “Keep Your Fears To Yourself – Robert Louis Stevenson”

  1. Thank you for the kind words Maitreni. It is a beautiful opportunity to try and tune our personalities to bring the best out of us. It can make life so much more enriching :)

  2. It’s always good to enhance your positive aura and you have very well portrayed this through your points. A well executed article Vinay :)

  3. Absolutely spot on jyothi. Nothing better expresses leadership I guess. We have to constantly portray a strong side and lead towards it instead of baulking under pressure and fear. The more we spread with people around the more they believe in us. It is such an important point which I had missed completely. Thank you for bringing it up. It provides a splendid context for the quote and its meaning.

  4. True yash. To be honest I found myself at two corners when trying to analyse this quote and both aspects seemed to make sense. Definitely agree to fear having a detrimental effect when kept inside. The trick possibly is to use it as a motivation to bring the best of us. The question of course will be how. But it is a brilliant thought process to be in.

  5. When you share your fear it reduces and when you share your strength it increases….Keeping fear within oneself can have a devastating effect because with time its intensity increases and gradually it empowers you… Therefore, the best way to deal with fear is to share it and subsequently deal with it.

  6. Jyothi D'mello

    This quote is one of the famous Leadership quote and so apt. Most of our fears are meaningless, emerging due to self-doubts. Why would anyone then want any part of our fears. Courage however is something everyone wish to have but sometimes need a little help with. :-)

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