Like freedom from want, freedom from fear sounds better than the reality. We all know what it's like to feel overwhelmed by fear, but few of us know what it's like to be unburdened by fear. We imagine it would make us bolder and braver. In reality, it would make us stupider. Fear, as it turns out, is a fundamental part of making good decisions.
Consider the case of a 24-year-old woman we'll call Lucy. She began having seizures after a week-long fever. The seizures become more and more frequent, even with anti-seizure medication. Within a week, Lucy's brain was in a dangerous state called status epilepticus-essentially, one continuous seizure. When standard therapy didn't work, her doctors performed emergency brain surgery to prevent further brain damage or even death. The surgery, a temporal lobectomy, removed the part of Lucy's brain that seemed to cause 80% of the seizures. The surgery was deemed a success: Lucy's seizures were now under control, and she was released from the hospital.