A Fear of Success
In these twilight years of mine where most of life is in the rearview fading into an increasingly foggy memory, I find myself waxing nostalgic more and more often, sometimes happily so, sometimes regretfully. It’s my movie, I suppose, and I hate to lose too many of the early scenes to haphazard editing that’s the result of cobweb saturation. This morning I woke up thinking about my ex-wife’s friend back in my Seattle days, the year I decided to pick up stakes and make a fresh start on the Left Coast, probably the hardest year of my life, certainly the darkest.
Maybe you’ve had periods of your own life where the past seems like a dead end, the future seems bleak and the present, well, you’d just as soon stay in bed with the covers pulled up over your head. Me, I had no job, a busted marriage, an empty calendar, a house full of crazy ass roommates and no direction home or anywhere else. I felt like I was treading water and running out of steam. Sinking wasn’t a good option, but it seemed like the only option. At 26 years of age I felt like I’d screwed up my life. Irreparably, maybe.
So when I get introduced to my then wife’s friend who had worked with Edward R. Murrow for CBS back in TV’s heyday, a woman who had traveled the world and been a part of those exciting television days of journalism in its infancy, she embodied a version of what life could be if a person such as myself had a goal and maybe some directed energy. After meeting me she tells my X that I’m one of those sorry souls who has a fear of success. She ascertains this from a half hour conversation over a cup of coffee. I’m apparently an open book. The title: Loser. Her advice to my wife: ditch the slacker and move on with that new lover she’s taken, the one with ambition and drive who wants to sell real estate and make a million by the time he’s 30. She knows a losing horse when she looks one in the mouth. Or over a cup of joe.
Of course she was probably right. I wasn’t going to make a million, not in a dozen lifetimes. I didn’t even like the idea of being rich, that’s how much of a loser I was. My wife, on the other hand, liked the idea very much. That’s how much of a winner she and her boyfriend were. They went to seminars on how to ‘visualize’ success. They were on their way. Me, I was little boy lost.
But even now, some 40 odd years later, it grates on me this notion of being afraid of success. In America, success is the goal. Doesn’t really matter what kind of success, just something that smacks of winning. American Idol, retirement at 35, prom queen, yo-yo champion of the South End, something to hang your hat on, doesn’t matter what. My problem, of course, was finding something worth giving my time and my interest to, something I could be passionate about. The thought of working some brain draining job was horrific to me. But I didn’t see much option other than NOT working some brain draining job. Maybe you see my dilemma. It wasn’t fear of success, it was fear of accepting a life spent pursuing a goal without passion. Sure, who wouldn’t want to be yo-yo king of the island, but c’mon, that’s kind of thin gruel.
So to the woman who worked with Edward R. Murrow who is probably dead now and her signed photos distributed to her progeny like trophies, I say you should have kept your advice to yourself. We all have to find our way in this tangled mixed up world and the last thing any of us need is unsolicited criticism, just one more obstacle on the hard paths most of us have to travel. And as for my ex … well, I hope she made a few million.
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Tags: Fear of Success, Unsolicited Advice
Twilight? Seriously? Well, maybe so. Nonetheless, I do remember being plagued by that feeling that success can only be measured materially, and how devastating it is to realize you aren’t going to be that sort of success in this world because you are largely unable or unwilling to practice the behaviors required. How easy it is to feel as if you yourself are defective, even knowing at the same time that the system judging you is thoroughly and completely defective. The nice thing about the twilight years, though, is perspective.