Without fear, there’s no bravery.

Simon Pastor
3 min readDec 5, 2022

Why we should all be chasing “good fear”

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The other day I saw this video of two MMA fighters talking and shaking hands after a fight. You should watch the video, you can find it below, and it’s only 15 seconds long.

I have to admit; I thought it was cool. I’m sure the fighter had prepared his quote and was ready to deliver it in a movie-like way. But I loved this idea that without fear, there’s no bravery. I’m sure I had read it somewhere in some similar form in the past, but I must have forgotten it. Anyways it made me think

When I started grad school a year ago, I joined the grad rugby team and re-started playing rugby. The week before my first games, I would get anxious. The worst part was probably the 30 minutes before a game, where the anxiety turned into some type of fear. While being nervous before a game applies to all sports, I feel this can be even more pronounced in contact sports, as you are putting your body on the line. Seeing your opponent warm up and knowing that you’ll be going hard at each other soon adds to that tension and stress. I like to compare…

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Simon Pastor
Simon Pastor

Written by Simon Pastor

🇪🇺🇫🇷🇺🇸 @YaleMPP • Previousy @LSEGovernment, Institut Montaigne, CitizenLab, UN 🇺🇳

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