To anyone who reads

To Fall

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go.”

Walk to the edge of the cliff and stare down. Stare until you feel the fear that you can fall and no one will be there to save you. Do you feel it? Embrace it.

Everyday we walk through the streets, we are constantly thinking, believing that there is something to worry about – be it your hair, your job, your coffee, your homework, or your family. Of course, worrying will never end. But, what if you constantly worry over things you cannot control? Will you let that fear to fail build? Will you stop doing what you do out of fear?

Everyone tells us that it is okay to fail, to fall. But, is it okay to fail? Of course not. But, when have we let things that felt wrong stop us from doing what we should be right? Never. If we fail, of course we doubt everyone and everything. This is the classic speech: You fail but you learn to pick yourself up. If failing to accomplish that job is the biggest worry, then you have it pretty darn good. Just pick yourself up and start again. Don’t let the fear of failing get the best of you.

Although I agree with that speech, it’s not the speech that I believe to be true. Words are words. But trust and belief fuel who I am. We do learn to pick ourselves up; but that is after so many falls. We are wounded; we are hurt. But, how are we expected to stick a Band-Aid on a wound that is so large that we cannot possible cover and try walking again? Everyone expects us to recover from an injury quickly. As cliché as it is, time heals all wounds. We learn to forgive ourselves and we learn to accept.

Failing may not be as large of a worry compared to others. But in my mind, there is no room to compare myself to other people because I would never understand what it feels like to be them or to have their worries. I am me and I have my own worries. When we fail, whether it be large or minute, a part of ourselves question what we have been doing. That feeling makes it impossible to just dust our butts and start again. That fear just builds up. It gets the best of us.

Who said fear should make us a deer in headlights? Of course we are scared to get back up, but we learned something from that fear. We are human. We make errors because we cannot be perfect. Fear teaches us that we only care about getting it right. But it is not about “getting it right.” It is about doing what is right – learning from our mistakes. Yes, the pain and feeling inside hurts from that fall. But in all honestly, that pain only comes because society deems that we should all be able to fly on the first try. If everything worked on the first try, then we should have had a light bulb before Thomas Edison’s time period.

Take this advice.

Embrace the fear. Jump off that cliff. Fall and expect no one will catch you. You will not fly. You will not have a large enough Band Aid to cover those wounds. You will not die. Cry it out and forgive yourself. Never forget that fear as you run back to the top and jump off again.