The Fun of Failure

A fun, not-too-hot destination walk tonight.  I met friends at Domincan Joe's for coffee around 6:30.  I googled the walking directions -- one route was 1.6 miles from my house, the other was 1.9.  Of course I walked that one.  On the way back I veered over to Stacy Park and made up the extra 1.2 . 

I’ve been feeling a little….I don’t know….timid.  Introverted.  Could be just the weather (summers don’t bring out the best in me and yes, I realize it’s not even summer yet).   Or some kind of hormonal or chemical fluctuation.  On the rare occasions when I feel like this, it brings up memories of my late teens and early twenties, when “timid” was an understatement.  What did (X,Y or Z) think of me?  Was I pretty enough?  Accomplished enough?  Thin enough?  I was afraid to put myself out there, to be conspicuous, in any way.  What if I got a part-time job in a restaurant, and a guy I had crush in came in WITH A GIRL??)  So self-conscious – self-absorbed, really – was I that I remember telling a friend once that the only way I would ever cut my long hair cut short would be just before I moved to another city, where nobody knew me.  I can still remember the impassive gaze she leveled at me, and I could hear her thinking “Are you kidding me?  Do you really think the world is that interested in you?”

A lot has thankfully changed since then, but when I’m not careful, I can feel myself veering back into that well-worn groove.  I’ve been re-reading a great book, The Happiness Project, which I read last year on my Puerto Rico trip, and which was actually largely responsible for this blog.  The author, Gretchen Rubin, decided to exercise a number of qualities and activities she knew from research and experience heighten a person’s happiness.  Believe it or not, one of them was keeping a blog.  And it brought back memories of the early days of this project, when I would write my piece, take a deep breath and hit “Publish,” knowing full well that some people would find my words silly or unimportant. Rather than inhibiting me, that thought exhilarated me.  I felt like I was shedding my old self-conscious skin and embracing a new, cheerful, devil-may-care me.

Reading her book again sparked something in me.  She has a great line, which I somehow missed the first time, that she speaks to herself when she's afraid to do something:  "I love the fun of failure."  She says that to herself until she starts believing it.  I don't really have to convince myself of it, I already half believe it.

So this is what I'm going to do:  email a guy Lynn used to date, who's a reporter for the Statesman, and ask him about a freelance piece I submitted to someone over there a few weeks ago, and never heard back from. They published an article I wrote this time last year, so it's not like it's completely without precedent.  I'm going to ask him to read it.  Maybe he'll tell me it's no good, or they didn't have a place for it, or any number of things.  That's okey.  I can take it. It's the hiding out that I hate. I love the fun of failure.  I love the fun of failure.  I love the fun of failure.