Fear of success

There's only one thing that scares me more than failure: success.

I know that sounds incredibly illogical. And y'know what? It is. But it's because success is an unknown.

There's something comforting in failure. Failure is a known entity. We've all failed. We've all failed many times and in many venues. And what comes after failure is a known entity: Another try.

What comes after success?

I'm not sure, and that's what scares me. Maybe what comes after success is more failure, and logic would dictate that falling from a higher place is more painful when you hit the ground. Maybe after success comes more success -- which would be wonderful, but who knows.

Maybe success is like death: Nobody really knows what comes next; nobody lives to tell about it.

But more than likely, my problem is not in fearing success, but in defining success. I should stop looking at success as this grand thing that comes after a lifetime of hard work, but in more bite-sized chunks.

Or maybe, I'm just worried that I haven't failed enough or worked hard enough to have earned success.

I'm not done failing. And I am not going to say that I like to fail, and I'm sure I'll like success, but right now, I like what I'm learning from failure -- or at least I like knowing that every failure adds something to my life. Every failed path shows me a pathway not to take. And sometimes it's more important to know which road NOT to take than it is to know the one TO take.

I'm not sure what success will bring, but I know I've got more failure ahead of me.

And I'm comfortable with that. It's certainly less scary than success...