What’s The Opposite of Fear?

There isn’t really a word for living without fear.  There is “fearless,” but that just means a lack of fear.

Here are the closest words I’m aware of:

• certain
• sure
• confident
• bold
• fearless
• unafraid
• assured
• dauntless
• valiant

Isn’t it amazing that there is no word that stands for the pure opposite of Fear?  So many of the above words just mean the lack of something, “UN-afraid, fear-LESS, daunt-LESS.”  Or, the above words have something more to them–like charging into battle.  You don’t have to be bold or dauntless to lack fear, though you might be.

But it is a real quality, the opposite of fear, a wonderful quality, perhaps the quality we should strive for above all others (along with compassion).

The closest word that I can come up with is free….