Living and Learning

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. " - Thomas A. Edison

I sometimes wonder if I fear success.

It seems that every time my career in the banking business was on the cusp of developing into something more, I either changed jobs ... or moved ... or had a baby ... or ...

On looking back and realizing that the 'could have beens' would have been very different than the 'what was', I have often wondered if I unconsciously sabotoged my own success.

Success is scary. Moving onto a new job, new responsibilities and climbing the ladder of success is a frightening prospect. Often as frustrated as I have become with a job, all that I have had to do is look seriously at the prospect of change and I was frightened back into accepting my reality. I could put up with the mundane, the frustrating and going nowhere jobs ... if I looked hard at the options.

I have been doing a lot of dreaming this past while. I can get myself visualizing where I want my life to go. I can feel it with every morsel of my being. I know I can set myself in a direction that moves me towards these goals. Then I wake up.

'The morning after' is scary. I think of the chances, sacrifices and hard work it will take me to move from a life of comfort and ease ... to a new destination.

What if I start making these first tentative moves and the results aren't what I expected? What if I quit at the first sign of failure? What if I don't succeed ... simply because I gave up on believing in myself? What if I'm on the brink of living my dreams and I quit trying?

Learning from my past and succeeding in many of my present life 'adventures into the unknown' makes me believe that I will keep moving forward. Believing in myself and the idea that life is what you make it has opened many doors for me. I see no reason why I can't continue to walk through new doors.

I will not give up believing.