Rules of Life, The, 4th Edition

RULE 13

No fear, no surprise, no hesitation, no doubt

Where does this come from? It’s from a seventeenth-century samurai warrior. This was his four-point key to successful living – and swordsmanship.

• No fear. There should be nothing in this life that you are afraid of. If there is, you might need to do some work on overcoming that fear. Here I have to confess to a certain fear of heights. I avoid high places if I can. Recently, owing to leaky gutters, I had to crawl out on our roof – three floors up with a very long drop on one side. I gritted my teeth and kept repeating, ‘No fear, no fear, no fear’, until the job was done. Oh yes, and of course I didn’t look down. Whatever your fear, face it head on and defeat it.
• No surprise. Life seems ...