I saw a post on Facebook one day that posed this question, “if you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do?”  I thought I was really clever when I typed the word “nothing.”  Thinking, why would it be worth doing if there was not the threat of failure looming over you.  It stuck with me for days; the more I thought about it, the more I felt maybe the opposite was true.

I really don’t consider failure when I attempt a project like I am working on now.  Sometimes, maybe I should since I do tend to get over my head but I guess that is a blog for another day. I am a big believer that you can accomplish anything, within reason, and the right amount of effort. Consider this, if you focus on the failure then doesn’t that become what you are trying to accomplish? Let’s say you are carving a sculpture and all you can think about is how just one little slip and off goes an important part. Guess what? You will probably slip. Or you are dieting and all you think about is a yummy chocolate donut. Or if you approach Christianity by focusing on sin instead of love or grace. I think you get what I mean.

I grew up, for a time, expecting the worst. My philosophy then was based on the thought that I could never be disappointed with failure. Instead I would be surprised by success.  How crazy is that?  Why look at life that way?  It’s all because of one simple and very powerful word, FEAR.

It has taken a lot of years and a complete restructuring of my thought processes but I have conquered most of my fears.  I realized that with Christ in me how can I have fear?  What kind of craziness is that?  So the rest of them have to go.

With this I will Face Fears at Fifty in 2015.  It is with this attitude I have started working toward being an independent, professional artist. But there is one other fear in particular that still smothers me at times. The Mack Daddy of all my fears. It is time to get rid of my big fear of the water.  How?  Swimming lessons!  Paid for and set to begin next month so I can’t get cold feet and back out.  I can only go into it focusing on the success and not the failure.  I will be a swimmer in a month!

Enjoy this song.  Oddly it has water in the lyrics.