The Great Acting Blog: “True Failure”
Chasing goals we don’t care about is easy because it doesn’t really matter whether we accomplish them or not. It’s not scary because the potential for hurt should we fail, is absent. So we can continue to drift along, with the pressure off, making a half-hearted effort. Later, if we actually accomplish the thing we don’t care about, it’s not exactly exhilarating because we don’t care about it.
Going for something we love however, for something we’re passionate about is altogether a different matter. It can make us feel alone. We are exposed and vulnerable, if we fail here then it will hurt. Something is at stake. Of course then, this kind of accomplishment is tougher, it requires more from us, we have to dig deeper and raise our game, we feel under pressure. The flip side however, is that when we succeed, we may be rewarded with the greatest exhilaration it is possible to know.
In the end, it’s up to us to decide what kind of life we want to lead, what kind of career we want to have, what kind of body of work we want to create. But know that if we turn away from the important work, the work which spooks us because it matters, in favour of the snug comfort of doing work we don’t care about, then we are cowards. This kind of surrender in the face of a true challenge, is called failure.
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