"These thoughts led me to the following conclusion: in so man..." — Robert Greene

These thoughts led me to the following conclusion: in so many ways, we create a self-fulfilling dynamic in our lives that tends to go in one of two directions. The first is determined by our overall sense of fear when confronting the world. This makes us value comfort and security above all else. We choose career paths or tasks that are easy and offer minimal resistance. we unconsciously set before ourselves certain limits and we do not wish to explore beyond them. These limits represent what we believe we are capable of, how far we can go. Keeping them narrow, we lower our chances of experiencing painful failure. We then shrink to the size of our small aspirations. We may not be consciously aware of this process, but it is affecting our levels of energy and focus, and our health. As we get older, our options tend to decrease–we fall behind the trends in our careers, we are replaced by people who are younger. We feel bitter, angry and frustrated, unaware of the extent to which our own fears have set up the self-fulfilling dynamic.