As I grew older and more experienced, I realized that the ability to distinguish between real and apparent dangers is fundamental to good judgment, and people who don’t possess it are seriously handicapped. They dwell in a state of incipient catastrophe, thinking only of what can go wrong and trying to ward it off before it occurs. They aren’t masters of reality, although they like to think they are; they’re masters of unreality because they let their fears, which are figments of an untrustworthy imagination, govern their lives. It’s as if they never break through a secret barrier that
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