Epic Failure

While working on some new comedy material, I decided to make a list of things I was afraid of.  I suppose many folks would have items on it like spiders or dying… or leprechauns or trolls (maybe that was redundant, sorry)… I actually had a hard time making a list of my fears.

It’s not that I’m not afraid of things, I just don’t think there’s much I can’t handle. Yeah, I’m tough like that.   And I will cut you if I need to/want to/feel that you  need cuttin’.

I’m staring at the page and I jot down a few things – but one sticks out like a store, gnarled thumb: failure.  I’m woman enough to admit I’m afraid to fail.  At anything and everything.  I think part of that is because I care entirely too much about what others think of me (please LIKE this post and comment, ok?).  Another reason is that because I have very little in the way of life accomplishments (no kids, no degree, I change jobs more often than an OCD woman changes her panties, etc) – I hold like crazy onto my few successes like trophies… and I display them to the world to validate me.

And who wants to validate a failure?  No one.  Well, maybe TMZ, but yeah.

Of course, the fear of failure comes from failing at things.  It’s a vicious circle.  I failed at college (twice).  I failed at becoming a pop star.  I failed at just about every job I’ve ever had.  I’ve failed my friends.  I’ve failed my family.  I’ve failed to be able to create a family of my own.  Fail. Fail. Fail.

I think my fear of failure is one reason I oftentimes don’t follow through on things I plan.  Cause if I don’t try, I won’t fail.  How’s that for simple logic?  But it makes sense I guess.

It’s strange to hate failure so much that I feel paralyzed from actually doing anything.  That’s fucked up, right?  So I’m going to let the fear of failure stop me from trying anything. As I type this – I realize the dumbth that this is.  DUMBTH.

I can say that the light at the end of the failtunnel seems to be that I think I’ve learned something from most of my failures.  Though it hurts to go through the fail part to get to the “aha” part.  And I look back and can’t see many repeat failures at the same thing.  Of course, I don’t try things very often, so that could have something to do with it.

I guess I need a point in order to wrap this post up – I guess my point is that I’m a failure.  Ok, there it is.  I’m a big (but no longer fat) failure.  And maybe admitting that and being ok with the fact that I fail is part of getting over the fear of failing.

Only one way to find out!

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