Fear is useful. It sometimes keeps us from serious harm. Without fear, our ancestors would have been eaten by sabre toothed tigers or stomped on by woolly mammoths. Fear is one of the reasons you and I are alive today.

By the same token, bravery also played a part in who we are. The folks who tamed such scary things as fire and electricity, who weren’t afraid to fly, who did what they felt was right even in the face of overwhelming threat, were also responsible for our lives today. Specifically, they gave us lives worth living.

Americans have generally been more on the brave side of the equation, but this year’s presidential election seems much more driven by fear. I find that sad.

Even though millions of voters would prefer that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton be elected, fear is the force currently driving one of them toward a win. Fear of one is mostly what keeps the other alive. Both of them have disapproval ratings that would make them entirely unelectable if so many voters didn’t fear the prospect of the other becoming our next president.

Now, if you truly like either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, this isn’t addressed to you. But if you’re planning on voting for the lesser of two evils, what you’ll get from doing so is evil — and you’ll deserve it, in my very humble opinion.

If the millions who like neither Clinton nor Trump voted for someone they liked, rather than against someone they fear, it could result in an entirely different political landscape. Rather than holding our noses and voting for someone abhorrent only because that person is slightly less abhorrent than the other one, we could actually put an end to these WWE wrestling shows that pass for presidential elections. We could change the future, rather than having to fear it.

There is a wonderful political quiz at a website, ISideWith.com, not sponsored by any candidate or party. You answer “yes” or “no” to questions concerning issues of the day and you then find out which presidential candidate you agree with the most.

For my part, I answered all of the questions and the results showed that I agreed with Gary Johnson some 90 percent of the time, which is much more than any of the other candidates. I was pleased to find that my opinion of him, before I took the test, wasn’t an uninformed one. Your results may be different. While Johnson was the answer for me, some friends of mine who have taken the test came up with Trump or Clinton, so I know it’s a fair one.

The quiz takes less than five minutes. Why not take that small amount of time to find the person you agree with most. And if the answer comes back as Trump or Clinton for you, fine. Vote for the one you truly like. But if you get a different answer, why not be brave. You’ll certainly feel better having cast your vote for someone you truly believe in — and you won’t look in the mirror the following morning and find a coward looking back.

Jim Sullivan is a freelance writer from Watertown. Talk back ?at letterstoeditor@?bostonherald.com.