If we fear the unknown then surely we fear ourselves.
Even as we enumerate their shortcomings the rigor of raising children ourselves makes clear to us our mothers' incredible strength. We fear both. If they are not strong who will protect us? If they are not imperfect how can we equal them?
We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.
Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.
I write for those women who do not speak for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us but it won't.
When we are afraid we ought not to occupy ourselves with endeavoring to prove that there is no danger but in strengthening ourselves to go on in spite of the danger.
Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family society and state in which we live.
In my family in the days prior to television we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously.
There is an overwhelming amount of information available to us all on the web each day not to mention what is shared with us by our family friends fans and followers. This necessitates the need to filter through all that information and to decide for ourselves where to put our attention.
When we're dealing with the people in our family - no matter how annoying or gross they may be no matter how self-inflicted their suffering may appear no matter how afflicted they are with ignorance prejudice or nose hairs - we give from the deepest parts of ourselves.
The Hispanic community understands the American Dream and have not forgotten what they were promised - that in the U.S. a free market system allows us all to succeed economically achieve stability and security for your family and leave your children better off than yourselves.
The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith so we had to do something.
Often we are quick to find blame with others but yet are unable to give constructive responses. There seems to be a tendency to doubt almost everything. Do we not have faith in our own people's strengths and in our institutions? Can we afford distrust amongst ourselves?
We have the incredible privilege of serving in the highest offices in the state. We must prove ourselves worthy of our fellow citizens' faith. We must be trusted to always place the public's good above our own and to always choose fairness over favoritism.
Faith always contains an element of risk of venture and we are impelled to make the venture by the affinity and attraction which we feel in ourselves.
It helps I think to consider ourselves on a very long journey: the main thing is to keep to the faith to endure to help each other when we stumble or tire to weep and press on.
We can reach our potential but to do so we must reach within ourselves. We must summon the strength the will and the faith to move forward - to be bold - to invest in our future.