What terrifies you; LJ Idol 2

[ellenmillion]

Edit to add: Voting is now live for this! Go here to vote on your favorite entries for this topic: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/78160.html?#cutid1

This was an easy choice, unlike the last theme - if not particularly comfortable to write about.

I'm terrified of a number of the usual things: the dark (those winter treks to the outhouse were a nightly test of spirit!), spiders that drop on me from above, click beetles that get stuck in my hair, falling from high places; the usual collection of little fears and frights. But by far, the thing that most consistently terrifies me is failure.

Believe me when I say that I can speak with some authority on this subject.

To date, I have failed at a whole lot of things - some of them spectacularly.

I am used to feeling like a failure in front of my parents, who, bless them, will come into the house I spent the previous 48 hours cleaning, sterilizing, mopping, dusting, scrubbing, and polishing, to observe only that the screens on the stove fan are dirty. Also, I have failed to provide them with grandchildren (this is it's very own topic...).

Twice I have attempted to 'go freelance' with my artwork, and both times I've slunk back to a job that waved a steady paycheck at me. (To be fair, in both cases, they did wave a lot of money and benefits at me, and promised to be part time so I wouldn't have to 'give up' entirely... but still, dayjob for the fail.)

Last week's idol, I was, what, a point away from being eliminated? Ow, my ego! (Part of me wants to protest that, hey, they put me in tribe 3 with the big dogs, as punishment for being at LJ so long and having an unculled friendslist, but more of me just feels... yeah, like a failure.)

I know better, of course. I've built a respected business out of $80 in start-up cash and paid artists thousands of dollars they wouldn't have otherwise gotten. Even if my business doesn't line my pockets, it sure buys me cool toys (wide-format printers and tablet PCs, yo!) and even just surviving 14 years is worthy of a nod. My parents love me and think I'm doing well, even if my stove fan filters ARE dirty.

Terrors can't be explained away with logic. This fear haunts me no matter how many people lovingly explain that they don't consider me a failure, and it probably will for a very long time.

And in the end, I'm even more scared of not trying to do things, because the failure of not attempting is keener than the failure of not succeeding.

Brave, stupid, or just stubborn? Is there really much difference in the end?

Comments

[twystedpixie.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered at the people seemingly on top of the world, at the top of their game...how do THEY feel? Do they feel like failures? I'm sure some of them secretly do. Which makes me start thinking about how we define "success" now. Something rings hollow. But that's a whole other topic, methinks.

[boundfate.livejournal.com]

This is a great comment to a wonderful entry.

[jenelycam.livejournal.com]

*HUGS* I voted for you last week.

And I can see you having that fear. But I think you're a HUGE success!!

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Man, parents have a way of making us feel like we're 10 year old with dirty hands don't they?

[mme-furiosa.livejournal.com]

I don't know where to start:

1) wow, you had an outhouse? That's nuts (and kinda cool, in my urbanite mind)
2)Oh, Parents! At least your parents give you something to strive for, even if it is an impossible perfection. My parents are the, "We are just so proud of you...whatever it is you're doing!" type. No gauge of anything but love.
3)"Brave, stupid, or just stubborn? Is there really much difference in the end?" Maybe not in the end, but during? Hell, yes. To quote someone wiser than myself, "What matters is how you walk through the fire."

Great entry.

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

real fears are ones that even though we know we shouldn't fear them, hang there around us all the time. And no matter why we fear them, it still, well, sucks, to have them

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

You have fourteen years of making it under your belt? I am seriously impressed. I don't know a lot of people who've been at their day jobs that long!

I enjoyed reading your post. Keep up the good work. :)

[virtualcardsuk.livejournal.com]

You might see 14 years of failure but I see 14 years of experience. Do you think the lightbulb was invented at the first attempt? It took refining and yes, failure to come up with a concept that finally worked.

I do understand the pride in being able to say that you work full time for yourself and also the feelings that going back to work for someone else engenders. Have been there myself.

Believe in yourself and your abilities Ellen, you have done things that other people could never do.

Remember: It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.

Warmest wishes.

Steven

[porcelain72.livejournal.com]

Terrors can't be explained away with logic. This fear haunts me no matter how many people lovingly explain that they don't consider me a failure, and it probably will for a very long time.

Indeed. No one will ever be harder on you than yourself.

[tulip-in-yellow.livejournal.com]

At least you've honestly tried with your art. I thought about it, but I still to this day have never attempted. Now THAT is true failure.

Great entry.

[superhappytime.livejournal.com]

I met a guy a while back at a job I was interviewing for and he came right out and told me that he had never failed at anything. At that point I knew I didn't want to work for him. He was either a liar, or...well, there is no or...he was just a liar. We all fail. And sometimes it's scary. In the last 6 months I've had a relationship fail and I failed in a new career...failures to make the right decisions led to these things, because, at least the job thing, was preventable...

[elva-undine.livejournal.com]

"Terrors can't be explained away with logic." So, so true.

[hopefulnebula]

Oh yes. No amount of logic in the world can explain certain fears away...

(also, I firmly believe that you can't be brave without being stubborn and sometimes even stupid.)

[lacombe.livejournal.com]

I have this awful creeping malaise about turning 30- that was always sort of the "straighten your life out deadline" for me. So far? Yeah, not so good, but I'm still swinging.

Great entry-- I don't see any reason to think you won't be hanging in there. ;-) What kind of art do you promote? I'd really love to do something with my photography, but I barely know where to start.

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

Nice entry. Totally funny about the stove fans.

[sircaliban.livejournal.com]

And in the end, I'm even more scared of not trying to do things, because the failure of not attempting is keener than the failure of not succeeding.

I think that we all fail.. everyone does... and really success is basically that you tried one more time than the number of times you failed.

[sushimustwrite.livejournal.com]

I was another one of those so-close-to-being-voted-off people in Tribe Three. It's definitely punishment. :)