Nothing left to lose
It’s been a long December, and there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last. But how much better? What has kept it from being better before this? Have you been unable to do everything you wanted to, due to scheduling restraints, personality conflicts, or plain old fear? I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, but I can tell you that a lot of people fail to accomplish their goals because they’re afraid. Not just of failure, but also of success.
Neil Gaiman once published a Sandman short story called ‘Fear of Falling’ for a collection of DC Vertigo preview comics. The story concerned itself with one man’s recurring nightmares, linked to his pulling out of a stage play he had written and was producing. He had become cripplingly afraid of being unable to perform to the expectations of the audience, even though the show had yet to begin. He likened it to nightmares in which he would climb to a great height, fall, and try to wake up before he hit the ground, which he was certain would kill him. This fear is common. Stage fright, just like Writer’s block, can take many forms. It’s natural and normal to worry over reactions to anything you create, but the most important thing to remember is just to get your creation out there in the world, without regard to how it may be received.
How often has worry over not having something worthwhile to say kept you from writing? How many times have you shrunk from trying something new because you were frightened of looking foolish? How much time do you spend regretting that which you’ve not done? And here I’m not just talking about creation – I’m talking about taking that trip you’ve been meaning to take, asking for that raise, or telling someone how you really feel. At the end of your life, will you be able to total up your successes and your failures and find that you’ve got more to regret than to be proud of?
At the end of ‘Fear of Falling’, our protagonist, having returned to helm the show, tells a friend what he’s come to realize: “Sometimes you fall. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.” This is my New Year’s reminder to you. Take everything you’re afraid will happen, and throw it all away. Don’t even give it a second thought. Put into the world what you want to experience. If you don’t, it will never happen. If you don’t release what’s inside you, what’s inside you will kill you. If you release what’s inside you, what’s inside you will save you. Sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
Come on and we'll sing, like we were free
Push the pedal down watch the world around fly by us
Come on and we'll try, one last time
I'm off the floor one more time to find you
And here we go there's nothing left to choose
And here we go there's nothing left to lose
-- "Nothing Left to Lose", Mat Kearney
Comments
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED to read today.
Are you living in my head with the other voices? :)
For a long time, I wrote off the idea of being "afraid of success" as other people's problem. Then I finally realized when I kept putting off projects for tomorrow, when I would (magically?) be better equipped to see them to fruition, I was probably really afraid of success deep-down.
Now, I'm trying very hard to embrace "The Beauty of 1.0" (thanks, Merlin Mann) and at least do SOMETHING with my projects, even if it's not 100% perfect, because something is scads better than nothing.