Once upon a time a kingdom was beset by a terrible dragon. A party of four villagers set out to confront the dragon in its Evil Castle, which was made out of Evil.
In the castle, they were each confronted by their greatest fears and weaknesses. The first villager was beset by Greed. The second by Wrath. The third by Forgetting To Put The Toilet Seat Back Down. And the fourth by Despair.
The first three villagers confronted their weaknesses, defeated them, and grew stronger from their ordeals. But the fourth found Despair wrapping itself around him like a cloak of cloud, and sank into its depths and was lost. But he kept on walking anyway, because that's what you do.
And the three heroes, and the villager who had been consumed by Despair, came before the dragon in its Evil Throne Room and confronted it. And the dragon laughed heartily and breathed fire. And the three heroes were utterly reduced to ash. But the fourth villager, wrapped deep in his suffocating cloud of Despair, did not feel the flames, and he walked up to the dragon and stabbed it in the eye.
"I don't think you quite got into the spirit of this whole ordeals thing," the dragon said as it died.
"Meh," said the villager.
And so the kingdom was saved, and they all lived ever after, until they died and some other people came along.
Yeah, I learned many many moons ago that Despair is a great way to shield yourself from the world - until I realized, almost far too late, it’s less of a shield and more self-strangulation.