When I was a kid, I used to imagine animals running under my bed.

“When I was a kid, I used to imagine animals running under my bed. I told my dad, and he solved the problem quickly. He cut the legs off the bed.” So spoke Lou Brock, the legendary baseball player, whose words carry not merely humor but deep and timeless wisdom. Beneath this simple childhood memory lies a truth profound: that fear, though powerful, often thrives only because we give it a place to live. His father’s act — practical, bold, and full of love — teaches us that wisdom is not always found in comforting words, but in decisive action. For in that single stroke of the saw, the father not only removed the child’s fear, but revealed the eternal law that governs both courage and life: to defeat what frightens you, you must change the conditions that sustain it.

In the ancient days, the sages would have called this a parable. The child, trembling in darkness, sees beasts where there are none — a perfect image of the human soul, which often imagines terrors beneath the surface of life. We, too, create monsters of our own making: fears of failure, loss, rejection, or the unknown. These creatures lurk in the shadows of our minds, just as the child imagined them under the bed. And how often do we, like that child, cry out for help, seeking comfort when what we need is transformation? Lou Brock’s father understood this truth. He did not scold, nor reason endlessly with his son’s imagination — he acted, and in doing so, taught the power of facing fear with practicality and strength.

It is said that Alexander the Great, upon reaching the Gordian Knot — a tangled cord that none could untie — did not waste time pondering its puzzle. Instead, he drew his sword and cut through it. His act was not mindless violence, but the mark of one who understands that some problems are not meant to be unraveled slowly but cleaved through with courage. So too did Lou Brock’s father cut through his son’s fear. He did not feed the darkness; he removed it. In that decisive moment, the father embodied the ancient virtue of clarity through action, the courage to act instead of worry, to fix instead of fret.

The lesson of this story goes beyond childhood and into the heart of adulthood. Many of our fears persist because we leave them room to grow. We build our lives upon fragile legs of hesitation, and under that bed of uncertainty, the imagination breeds monsters. But if we would only “cut the legs off the bed” — that is, remove the structure that allows fear to hide — we would discover how empty the darkness truly is. Fear survives on permission, not power. When we take that permission away, it vanishes like smoke in the wind.

Lou Brock, in his own life, lived this lesson on the field. A man of determination and relentless speed, he was told countless times that he was too small, too unfit, too ambitious to become great. But instead of arguing, he acted — training harder, running faster, and silencing doubt through triumph. He did not fight his fears with talk, but by building a life that left no space for them to dwell. His father’s lesson had taken root: to confront fear, one must change the ground on which it stands.

There is also in this quote a gentler wisdom — that the love of a father is not always soft, but practical and transformative. The man did not tell his son to be brave in words alone; he made the world itself less frightening. This is the mark of true guidance: not to tell others what they should feel, but to help them see the truth that destroys illusion. The father did not mock his child’s fear, nor indulge it — he met it with understanding and action. And in that, he gave his son a lesson that would outlive childhood — a lesson in how to face the unknown with reason and resolve.

Therefore, my children, when you find yourself fearing the shadows beneath your own bed — the doubts, regrets, and imagined failures that whisper in the night — do not tremble. Do not argue with shadows. Remove their ground. If your fear lives in uncertainty, make a plan. If it hides in ignorance, seek knowledge. If it grows from waiting, take action. Like Brock’s father, cut through what stands between you and peace. For life, though often filled with imagined beasts, is conquered not by wishing for safety, but by building it with your own hands.

And so, remember this final truth: wisdom is courage made practical. To face fear is noble; to change the world so that fear has no place to live — that is divine. When next your heart trembles, ask not what words can soothe you, but what act can free you. For the monsters of the mind flee before the sound of purpose, and when you have learned to cut away the legs that hold them up, you will sleep — as Lou Brock once did — in peace.