As I said to my cousin today...

"The fear of failure is a slow moving creature. It creeps into your insides and slowly smothers your dreams, choking out all hope, making you content with complacency. And before you finally realize it, you've allowed your dreams to die and you've allowed your life to be lived by your external circumstances, while you are never actually reaching for anything. A miserable life, lived as if you're inside a glass house, looking at the beauty of the outside, but never making the first step to try to experience it."