Sometimes we fail.

...and we spend so much time, analyzing, agonizing, replaying, regretting, and generally beating ourselves up, that the failure, large or small, is compounded several times over. So he said.

Friday, November 19, 2010

So often in fact that I am beginning to recognize this pattern, more than anything else in my life defines the boundaries of my spirit.  It is this wall, that has caged me in.
 

In school, I made one mistake, curricular, or social, and I would flee.  Often missing whole tracts of time, because of course after a day or two the absences themselves become a failure, that you just cannot face answering for.

At work, the same thing happened time and time again well into my early twenties.  In fact I remember the first job I actually did not abandon, and the day I decided to “go in anyway”.  It is remembered as an achievement.  As an emotional marker that I still sometimes call upon to get me “there”.

Late car payments, flubbed diets, missed deadlines, big things, little things, nothings, and I would escape into my head.  Every time immobilized by fear, and ultimately compounding the issue a hundred fold.  

Funny thing is, I still do it.   As of right now, the manager of the therapeutic riding stable that I (used to) volunteer at, is likely wondering if I am dead.  It started out as a fear of admitting that I just couldn’t afford the gas to drive out there, and now has compounded itself into a monster of mythical proportions.  How do you call someone up, someone kind and sweet and caring, and say to them “Yes my phone works, yes, my e-mail still functions.  I just couldn’t call you to tell you I was alive...because I am a prideful coward”?  Ouch.

“Okay, we can either dwell on it and feel bad, or we can learn from it and move forward.” he said.

 I have decided:  You just do it.