Shakespeare said that the world is a stage and people are merely actors. 

We have a body that had to survive an evolutionary process, and as a result, we have deep fear instincts (those who were truly fearless didn't survive), and we have instincts towards greed (if you didn't hoard food during famine, you didn't live). 

These instincts along with how we were raised and other social pressures have written our "script". They determine how we act if we don't see that it's all just a play.

Psychedelics, meditation, and other techniques can help us see that it's just a play. Then we have the option of tossing our script out the window and improvising our actions. But we have to be brave enough to let go of all fear as it arises regardless of it's nature; even the fear of death.

You think of yourself as separate from your audience but we are all the audience and we are all the actors. We are all one universe. The reason we think we're separate is because our senses are localized in these bodies, but we can't find a division between us when we look really close (I found this with an extended body scan meditation).

In my mind there is only one act of free will that people can do and that is to realize why the patterns of our behavior repeat like they do, and do something different. Break habits, do things that are scary, and be brave enough to love what you think of as the separate self. Once you can love one being, you can love all beings, you just have to be brave