If you’re not getting a little battered and bruised along the way, you’re probably not taking enough chances. And taking chances, as safely as possible, but sometimes with an abandon that seems unwise, is what makes a life.

Making mistakes and learning from those experiences constitutes arguably the most powerful and effective tool we possess as humans for self-education.

But we’re so afraid to make mistakes. There’s so much fear to overcome. Whether it’s choosing which job to take or whether to tell a lie instead of the truth. Fear is the ugly gremlin that lives inside, gleefully stopping us from taking good and necessary risks. Getting giddy with success when he sees us act out of fear, especially if we take that fear out on others.

If only we were perfect. If only we never used a poor choice of words or made a bad call. If only we acted impeccably 100% of the time. But we don’t. We make mistakes, some big, some small, that affect ourselves and others.

Mistakes can make or break a day or a week, but usually I can ride them out, especially if I know there’s an icy martini coming on Friday.

But when the mistakes are piling up, the curve balls coming in fast and furious, or when someone has really hurt me and my mojo is face-down in the mud, then I know no cocktail’s going to do the trick. Then it’s time to call in the big guns of redemption. Wildly different, wildly heroic –Rasta-Bob and Rocky.

The first step is to cue up Bob Marley. His lyrics are enough to help me shake off any possible self-pity. And though his political verses weren’t written to solve my tiny-by-comparison problems, his music reminds me that I can and will survive whatever’s going on. Songs like “Get Up Stand Up,” “No Woman, No Cry.”

Most of all “Redemption Song”: Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds. Those words can get me through any night. Even many nights in a row if necessary.

And where Rasta-Bob’s words uplift me emotionally, it’s to Rocky Balboa that I turn for hard-core attitude adjustment.

With Rocky in my mind’s eye, I lace up, work the kinks out of my neck, do some practice bobs and weaves. Then I slide between the ropes and get back in the ring.

I go up against whatever it was that knocked me on my ass in the first place.

And it’s always the same opponent I find there in the center of the ring, waiting to take me out – it’s the menace from within, the nemesis of living – fear.

We all know what fear does to us. It makes us weak. It makes us give up. It makes us run from love when it’s what we want the most. It makes us sit down when we should stand up.

I’ll say this about fear: It’s a cunning foe. Ignoring it makes it grow. Denying it only makes it hungrier.

I’ll say this about me: Fear isn’t going to knock me out. I don’t need to win, but like my man, Rocky – I’m damn sure going the distance.

I’ll get up at dawn. I’ll drink raw eggs. I’ll run through the streets and push past the pain.

I’m going to fight the good fight against fear. I’ll stay in the ring with it until I’m bloodied and broken. I’ll take my lumps, especially the ones I bring on myself. But I’ll never stay down for the count.