It\u2019s 1819, your boat has capsized, and you and 19 of your shipmates are 1,000 miles from the nearest sanctuary of land. You have three options to save yourselves: find the nearest islands 1,200 miles away\u2014islands rumored to be home to cannibals\u2014risk deadly storms and find your way to Hawaii, or take the longest journey towards South America and potentially starve to death before reaching land. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each option strikes fear into your heart. Which do you choose?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These were the real fears that the men of the whaling ship Essex<\/em> had running through their minds as they watched their ship sink into the ocean. And while history tells us what they eventually decided, it is in the choices they didn\u2019t make that we can glean an invaluable lesson about fear, the stories we tell ourselves, and the way they can impact our daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Come along as the novelist Karen Thompson Walker<\/strong> helps us look at our own tough choices in a new way that will feel like a leap of insight we can use every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We know how fear feels, but I\u2019m not sure we spend enough time thinking about what our fears mean.<\/p>\n\u2014 Karen Thompson Walker<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n When was the last time you made a decision based on fear<\/a>, either about the unknown future, the outcome of a decision you had to make, or a place you’d never been before? Did your wild ideas about what could<\/em> happen cause you to change your decision-making? Or, have you been avoiding an important conversation<\/a> or life change because of your fear of the imagined repercussions? <\/p>\n\n\n\n In her incredible talk on the TED stage, Thompson Walker helps us see the root of so many of our fears: imagination. In our unique ability to imagine the future, we tell ourselves stories that come to shape our reality. Fear not, though; if we come to understand our fears as the stories we tell ourselves, we can begin to make better decisions and start to listen to those stories with a more critical eye! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Watch the full TED talk here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n