If you have ever served in the military, been a first responder, or worked in any field where life and death decisions are routinely made, you are undoubtedly familiar with this acronym. FUD. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, the triumvirate of soul crunching, debilitating emotions that can reduce anyone to a state of inaction in the face of threat.

Together these three represent our primal flight or fright emotions –seemingly hardwired into our DNA. So, it comes as a surprise when ordinary people do extraordinary things despite their subsequent admission that they have felt all three. It is almost trite but no less true that courage is not the reckless ignorance of these feelings but rather the compulsion to do something one is called to do. It isn’t that heroic individuals overcome FUD, but that they are spurred on by something even more powerful.

Taken individually we could agree that we have all been plagued by these demons at one point in our lives or another. But when they pile on together, they can drive us to our knees. After all, fear, uncertainty and doubt are conditions of life, and not irrational ones at that. But taken together they are transformed into something else entirely—an inability to act. And in our frozen state of being we are left prey to all manner of challenges, even to the loss of life itself.

I am sure it is not lost on you that these same three emotions govern our relationship with that higher being I call God. We fear he does not exist, or that he does but simply does not care about what may happen to us. Our uncertainty about his very existence can lead us to rely too much on our own judgement and devices. Sadly, few of us are that wise and capable that we can rise above all that life deals us. Doubt, the product of fear and uncertainty leads us to reject all signs and evidence that our lives are not random, a biological accident that sooner or later will end in our demise without meaning.

Just writing that sentence left me feeling a bit desolate. As you can tell, I do not subscribe to FUD, and I won’t let it rule my life. I see through the sham. I understand that terror, and its companions can rob me of the one thing I alone have a choice in. My life is affected by things over which I have little or no real control. But I alone can decide whether to accept or not; I alone have a choice of how to respond when FUD enters the picture.

I am no hero. I have done some things in my life that were dangerous, and some things that in retrospect were foolish; out of an instantaneous decision to respond to someone in need. I gave no thought to fear, uncertainty or doubt, I simply acted. Again, that does not make me in any way heroic because it never occurred to me that my own safety was in question, even if that proved so in retrospect.

My point is a simple one. We can choose to be guided by our emotions alone and allow such visitors as fear, uncertainty and doubt to act in our lives and rob us of our will. We can choose to respond to something greater—something beyond our human understanding but not visible to our senses. Whatever you call that, it is something super-human—not superhuman—but beyond our humanity. That’s the choice I’ve made and I am not alone. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of men and women make a similar choice every day to put aside fear, uncertainty and doubt and to accept what comes with equanimity and a sense of a higher calling.

In their name I am going to coin my own acronym, PCC. It stands for perseverance, courage and conviction. Perseverance, to overcome whatever obstacles life presents to the best of our ability. Courage to accept with serenity what each moment brings; and Conviction to open our hearts and minds to another truth beyond that which we can access through our senses alone.

The next time you stand at a crossroad of fear, uncertainty and doubt I invite you to reject that choice and summon your perseverance, courage and conviction to act in faith and belief that nothing is in vain. Our lives matter more than we can ever know. That’s the way it should be, lest we become too assured and aloof from the trials that shape our character. None of us wishes to embrace the challenges we will encounter, but we can transform them into something noble, and that is what sets us apart.