Epic Fail
What would you do if you knew you could not fail? Why that thing? Spend some time considering what removing the possibility of failure would mean for you.
Ten days into a month-long writing challenge, and I am already ten days behind. So today’s prompt about the fear of failure feels like a good enough spot to begin in earnest.
I have been meaning to start a blog of my own for many years, and never did. Was I afraid of putting my thoughts out into the world? Worried what others would think? Or simply worried that I didn’t have enough to say—nothing relevant or important enough to toss into the digital void.
Stubborn perfectionism has always had a chokehold over me.
It’s helpful to think about the things that I wouldn’t have done any differently, even if I had known I could not fail. I think I still would have left grad school when I did. I was 25 years old, had just secured my master’s degree in English, had even been voted the president (unopposed, admittedly) of the English Graduate Organization—aptly and lovingly called EGO—when I decided to cut loose from academia. I actually wasn’t afraid of failing. I was afraid of the zero-sum game of tenure-track jobs, the fabricated competition, the super-human expectations of work ethic paired with the criminally low pay and lack of benefits. I met and worked with so many brilliant minds during my two-year stint at Penn State, many of whom had long since graduated and failed to secure an adequate position given their talents. I couldn’t in good conscience make the argument that I deserved to be there more than they did. And what’s more, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to.
Since then, I’ve dabbled in many different spaces. Digital marketing. Legislative proofreading. Corporate consulting. Tending bar.
I’ve tried and tested just enough different roles that I’ve arrived at a few common conclusions about myself:
I am adaptable.
I’m a fast learner.
And I can find my bliss, and my people, in just about any context.
Moving forward, I need to remember the truths I’ve already learned. I have planted the seeds and tended to the roots. Let the leaves grow as they may.
