Trying, Failing, Trying Again

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Image is in the Public Domain.

Author’s Note: I wrote this while going through a mild panic attack. The cause was something general, a vague notion before writing that whatever I was going to do I would fail at.

I don’t deal well with failure. Failure is something that provokes a visceral response inside me. It makes my heart beat faster. My mind races. My palms sweat. My legs twitch. My hands feel light and shaky. It’s everything I can do to hold on.

And I have no idea why.

Any amount of failure will do. If the consequences are of any weight, I go through the symptoms. All at once, until I don’t want to do the thing anymore. The scent of failure is enough to get my stomach to turn.

I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to lose control of the neurons between my ears. I don’t want to be a slave to their arrangement and their dreadful chemistry.

Somehow, in minor ways, I have overcome failure. By trying again. By repeating something and hoping for a new outcome. For the life of me I cannot remember how I do such things. How do I ignore the impending cost? It’s a good question, only one I can answer.

And I’m not telling.