It’s been a while since I’ve written my open letter to fear of failure.
And my fear? She still comes and goes. I can’t say that I feel less
fear, but now, when the fear knocks on my door, I can undo the locks,
welcome her in, pour her a cup of tea even, and chat with her until
she’s ready to leave. I ask when she’ll be back and, as usual, she winks
and says: “when you least expect it.” Somehow, I’m okay with that.
What I’m not yet comfy with is a new sensation, a new terror: the feeling of being completely lost.
Maybe this is just part of being an entrepreneur - especially of running a business the likes of which no one has run.
Maybe it’s an extension of living in this new, speeding-past-you world we’ve created.
Or maybe it’s the experience of every human, and I’m the only one whining about it.
I don’t know. But I will tell you that it can be crippling. Not in the
sense that I tuck myself into a corner and do nothing, but in the sense
that time that could be spent on action gets spent on imaginary quests
like getting a sure-thing plan or the perfect advice or finding a map.
But a map to where…?
No one can tell me just how to get there. Especially since no one, not even I, can know where I am going.
Maybe that’s the problem. This obsession with the where. Sometimes even the when.
I spoke to my husband Brian about this terror-of-being-lost as we were
peddling side by side on stationary bikes at the gym (a perfect metaphor
for how far I felt I was getting in life). Without slowing down he
said: “You are an explorer. Explorers are lost. If they knew where they
were going, they wouldn’t be explorers.” (That little husband of mine
says some really profound stuff).
I’m an explorer then. Which means that there is no map for me - only the
desire to discover. And perhaps once I’ve made my discoveries, I will
draw a map filled with zig-zagging lines leading to “X marks the spot,”
but when I hand it to the explorer who comes after me, I will tell him:
“If you choose to follow this map, remember that you will only be a
tourist in somebody else’s land. Being a tourist is fine and great for
photo ops, but there will come a time when you will wonder what lies
past the sharp edges of my map. And perhaps you will even find the
courage to get lost and step past these boundaries that I have drawn.
And when you do - you will discover a whole new world.”
(P.S. The photo above is my favorite map from my favorite book, The Phantom Tollbooth.)
No comments:
Post a Comment