Fail Big

The world is full of pressure. Most of it, insidiously enough, comes in quiet and subtle forms, moving slowly, like a glacier pushing into your living room. Eventually, we decide to cope with the pressure rather than resist it and we go get jobs, side gigs, easy relationships, or just let our health go by the way side. I'm not judging anyone for this, by the way. I'm absolutely done it myself. 

The will to fight the slow crawl of pressure is very difficult to keep up, especially when the will to fight comes from unclear sources. Most of the time, we're just trying to keep it together: a roof over our heads, food, clothing, transportation, medical expenses - it gets very daunting very fast. Then, what's more, if we are in a relationship, things like financial problems can easily turn into relationship problems, causing deep rifts in the place where love once existed. Sometimes, we say forever, but we really mean "until the money is gone" or "until you aren't attractive to me anymore". Our human hearts are pretty brutal sometimes. 

It's taken years for me to work my way out of some of the dark places that this realization has taken me to. In many ways, it had the effect of making me afraid to truly commit to creating and putting anything out at all. I felt, on a subconscious level, that it would bring more heartache than joy. That belief disclosed itself when I found it hard to finish even the most basic creative projects, finding resistance at every turn. Then, when I finally would power through to make it happen, I was met with quite hilarious little mental breakdowns during the finishing process that made me very hard to deal with, indeed. Thankfully, I never get so bad as to inflict damage..but it's still there. 

As I've been going through the process of freeing myself from such beliefs, I really had to hit things on a granular level. I had to realize that I was, in fact, indisputably, going to die. Not only was I going to die, but everything I do on this planet will vanish into the air as if they never existed. And, if by chance, I did something for people to remember by, eventually they will die, along with the last memories of me. 

With this perspective in place, suddenly, things look very different. I stop wondering what others would think about me at all. I sort of stop worrying about the consequences of just going for things. While obviously taking into account my relationships, it makes me realize that there are very few consequences for trying and failing, despite what we are often told. 

So, here's a big goal for the rest of 2018 that I am personally taking on and would love for you to consider: "Fail Big".  It's going to inform so much more of what this year has in store. 

​More about that tomorrow.