Most people don’t actually fail in the end they just don’t do anything. Doing nothing looks and feels comfortable like a ticket to a flight you never plan on boarding because there is no risk of crashing or having turbulence except there’s no destination for you.
I think of all the things I talked myself out of doing, quietly and without question. An idea for a business that I had sat in a notebook for 2 years before it died. I have had conversations that I have rehearsed 1000 times in my head but never spoke them aloud. What I believe is that my failure was not in the conversation itself, it was from choosing to stay silent.
One of the strangest aspects of life is how we as people have come collectively to let not doing anything something normal so to speak. If someone tries to launch a business and fails, people are sympathetic to them. If they never attempted to launch a business, nobody talks about it at all. So people tend to think about the attempt vs the absence.
But the absence of doing anything can be actually accumulate. You could spend the last decade of your life not failing in anything you’ve never attempted and eventually reflect back upon your life and feel as though you’ve been robbed out of having a choice in your life.
There’s no assurance of success when attempting new things. I am not trying to imply that. Sometimes a failed attempt can cost you a lot in monetary value, relationships and self esteem, that is true.
But you not attempting to do something affords you regret that is not because of the fact that you tried to do something or failed but rather to the fact that you didn’t allow yourself an opportunity to find out how it would have turned out. It won’t be obvious or show itself as a visible thing, it will just be there and will remain for the rest of your life. The secret was and will always be in the attempt.
