The fear of failure

I didn't post yesterday…


I suppose like most people I live with the fear of failure. 

What makes fending off failure so difficult are the never ending abundance of opportunities to fail, at least that is what a pessimist would say. If the coin lands on tails, you lost heads. You didn't win silver, you lost gold. 

I like to think I'm an optimist. Could you imagine the success in winning a silver? While the odds are 50/50 to guess the side a coin falls on, it's pretty impressive to guess correctly!

But reality is never so black and white. We float through the world in shades of grays, even colors at times. Our ups and downs—wins and losses—are so intertwined that we often cannot distinguish between our wins and losses. Perhaps that is a good thing. 

If there are no winners and no losers does that mean we've met in the middle and compromised? 

I'm not sure I know the answer. What I do know is how easy it is to see only what our minds want us to see. We are at the whim of those we love and are close to, to help see what we can miss. 

Or maybe it doesn't matter what we think. The only two people who matter is the one immediately ahead of us, and the one directly behind. 

Do you reach behind in an effort to help the one behind you? 

Do you push on the person you are behind?

Sometimes I wonder if the only thing I can do is hold on tighter to the rungs of this damn ladder.

DB

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