The Only Way to Guarantee Failure is to Never Try

No time to stop. (shared via flickr)

I cannot see.

The world around me is a blur, flashing by at high speed—my glasses (and contacts) left miles behind.

Or I’m in the time-traveling phone booth from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, unsure of where I am at any given moment of time.

In three weeks I’ve:

Life is time-traveling blur, only it cannot go backwards–unlike this most excellent phone booth.

• Helped move my mother-in-law,
• Driven to the beach,
• Met with teachers,
• Shadowed classrooms,
• Lost electrical power twice,
• Attempt de-sandification of my van,
• Done more laundry than you can possibly imagine,
• Replaced a refrigerator,
• Driven to karate practices,
• Had my 9^th wedding anniversary,
• Packed for a trip,
• Avoided causing a massive accident on I-35 when my tire blew,
• Spent a weekend at the Dallas-Fort Worth Writer’s Conference,
• Pitched to an agent,
• Asked for pages by aforementioned agent,
• Learned being not-normal is perfectly normal if placed in the right group of people,
• Hugged, Zumba’d, got naked, and roomed with a fryber (that means a cyberspace aka internet friend, G-ma) I’d never met in person,
• Learned guacamole (which I normally detest) can taste good,
• Unpacked and repacked for another trip,
• Developed a mean sinus headache that despises car rides as much as I used to hate guacamole,
• Accrued more knowledge about writing in two days than the last 25 years of my life,
• Driven/ridden in a car for over 1300 miles (just in the last five days),
• Been enlightened to the joy a parent has when children are old enough to watch DVDs in the car using headsets.
• Gone bike riding with an almost flat tire.

The world is blurred.

Time runs by, refusing to slow.

I stand, blind, leaning over a chasm.

I cannot see it, only hear it. The chasm echoes as The Inner Voice screams at me.

“You suck!”

“You can’t write!”

“No one will ever want to read this.”

“You will never make the time needed to succeed.”

“You will fail!”

“The only two valid excuses for not writing are coma and death.”

I inhale the world speeding by—it tastes different—changed from the week before.

I smile.

I jump.

You can’t publish, if you never write. You can’t write, if you never leap.

I cannot see the other side.

I don’t care, because I know the truth.

The only way to guarantee failure is to never try.

I might land—safe on solid ground.

I might only think I have—only to have the ground crumble beneath me.

I might fall straight into the chasm and have to fight my way back.

But it will no longer hold me prisoner—trapped in the safety of excuses trying to hide failure’s certainty.

And maybe, just maybe, I will grow wings and soar.