When we think about the bravest acts in human history—the daring rescues by seafarers in roiling oceans, the valor of the Coast Guard navigating a midnight gale, the rush of a firefighter into a collapsing building, or the quiet, decades-long sacrifice of a parent—we tend to imagine these individuals possess a rare, superhuman quality called bravery. We picture them standing tall, immune to the tremors of anxiety, facing danger with an unshakeable, stoic calm.

If you actually sit down and talk to heroes of the sea, or the veterans of the front lines, they will tell you a very different story. They will tell you that they were terrified. Their instincts were screaming at them to run the other way. They did not possess a magical superpower called “being fearless.”

If there was a superpower present in those dark, pivotal moments, it wasn’t the absence of fear. It was the presence of love.

The thing that overcomes fear is never a lack of fear; it is the presence of a deeper affection.