Lean In, Part II

"I think there is a certain age, for women, when you become fearless. It may be a different age for every woman, I don’t know. It’s not that you stop fearing things: I’m still afraid of heights, for example. Or rather, of falling — heights aren’t the problem. But you stop fearing life itself. It’s when you become fearless in that way that you decide to live.

"Perhaps it’s when you come to the realization that the point of life isn’t to be rich, or secure, or even to be loved — to be any of the things that people usually think is the point. The point of life is to live as deeply as possible, to experience fully. And that can be done in so many ways." 

- Theodora Goss (from her blog post "Fearless Women")

“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”  - Georgia O'Keeffe

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life, and the procedure, the process is its own reward."   - Amelia Earhart

"For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue — that I had to do the job myself."  - Anaïs Nin

As Sheryl Sandberg is quoted as asking in "Lean In" (posted here almost exactly a year ago): "What would you do if you weren't afraid?"

For women especially, but also for all creators who are Outsiders in one way or another, that's a powerful question.

Images credits are in the photo captions.