The Fear of Failure

There are times when I don’t feel like writing. I have to understand these moments. I long to become who I’ve always wanted for myself—the best version of myself, but I feel a hindrance born from fear. Fear has become a crippling yet necessary emotion. It has taught me what I love and hate, but mostly what I love. We often fear the things we love (e.g. God, poetry, potential, the soul etc.). Therefore, I do not ever want to be fearless because the absence of fear mirrors the absence of passion and purpose. I fear poetry. Perhaps that’s why I am writing a letter/note instead. I fear poetry because it is my risk. Everyone has at least one chance at pursuing a potential risk that can change the course of their entire life and lead to immense happiness and self-fulfillment. Failure—a word I’ve been well acquainted with as of late—has become a great fear in my life, yet I have done everything to run into it. Perhaps my keeping in touch with failure has been therapeutic in ways in the sense that it has allowed me to purge and face my fear. The fear of failure has diminished more with each failure I have endured and survived. Falling doesn’t seem so scary any more...it is no longer a threat or obstacle, rather a prerequisite. I have to fall in order to get to know the ground and, thus, be able to stand firmly on it.