I've never been one to pay much attention to fear. I come from the school of hard knocks and typically learn from others' failures. I never had a roll model to follow so I watch what is around me, decide what I don't want and do the opposite of what I see others do. At least that was the way in which I got myself to this point in life.
I could have ended up in prison, on the streets, knocked up and living in a single wide built out of beer can bricks, beaten up by pimps, cracked out, or dead. But I didn't. I took what I had and turned it into what I wanted it to be. I didn't do that by being afraid all the time. It would have been impossible to get anywhere or accomplish anything if I gave up because I was scared.
For a short time, I feel like I lost a little piece of myself recently. I started hiding out because I was afraid.
Afraid of what? Seriously! I don't have to worry about drug dealers and drunk red necks trying to take advantage of me. I have a nice house, I work in a professional capacity for a well known and established company, my husband is a better man than I ever thought I would end up with, I have hobbies and friends and interests and time to spend. What in the world could I really have to be afraid of?
The answer I think is failure. There have been a number of things in recent months that remind me of some of the goals I've wanted and worked very hard to accomplish in my life but for whatever reasons never quite worked out. Instead of asking myself what I can do about it and then do it (like I've always done in the past), I chose to feel sorry for myself. I chose to judge myself. I chose to go with the "why me?" scenario. Then when I saw myself doing that, I judged myself for making that choice instead of getting up to fight for what I want.
Why bother if all your hard work is going to amount to shit anyway?
No one who made promises ever followed through on them before, why would you think they could now?
You already wasted how much money and time and effort on those stupid goals, where'd it get you? NOWHERE Stupid!
I know, I'm a total bitch right. Yes, I can be. I've never been good at balance. I've never been good at giving myself permission to be just ok. If I'm not the best, the brightest, the fastest, I'm shit. Combine that with a lack of patience and you get a recipe for emotional disaster. And that's what happened to my head in the past couple of months.
A couple things that I'm having to remind myself in order to get back to a path that works:
- The harder one works, the more lucky they tend to be
- Even the best, the brightest, and the fastest had to start somewhere
- It's guaranteed failure if I never try but odds of success increase exponentially with effort
- Success is about progress, not perfection
So what if not everything I've attempted in my life has resulted in perfect success. How unrealistic is that expectation anyway? I'll go with VERY. Most screamingly successful people had to experience their own fair share of failure before they finally arrived. Maybe it's just my time to pass through that initiation right.
It's time to give myself permission to not be perfect. I'm allowed to be vulnerable. I'm allowed to have moments of weakness. I'm allowed to ask for help. That's the stuff that makes me human. That's the stuff that makes me loveable. I've never understood that before. My opinion has always been to appear strong and independent always. Never show weakness. Never show fear. Never show pain. It did me a great service at one time in my life but there's no need for it anymore.
Perhaps I just shed another layer of my armor. Well, lookie there. I'm growing right before your very eyes.
