Dan Byl

A question that a lot us can’t even ask, why? Well not enough of us are even willing to be honest enough with our selves to recognize that we do this. I know I am amazing I have been able to be honest enough with myself to come to the conclusion that I do in fact sell my self short in so many ways. Woohoo!!! Ok enough of the sarcasm.

Honestly I do this though, so the question is, why? What makes me do this? Fear, insecurities, self-preservation, I protect my self from things that don’t even exist and in the process of doing this I miss out on so many opportunities. I fear the things that I want most.

I have a fear of success, what if I reach my goals, what if I get what I think I want only to find that it is inadequate, or that what I thought was the be all, end all, is not all I thought it was. What if I put my self out there, get what it is that I have wanted for so long and then something happens and I screw it up. So I go through life not quite reaching my full potential in fact I actually hinder my self so that I can’t actually get there just so that I can’t and won’t screw up something good.

I enjoy a life of “lack of expectations” because people don’t expect a lot out of you, if you look like you are trying to getting somewhere, but aren’t quite there. People go oh I will help him reach his potential then I can ask for his help. People will give everything they have to help you get there, then when they don’t see any success, they go “well he just has growing to do” and they either give up or give you “space” so that you can grow. The fact is this that selling my self short is very much the easy way out.

The second reason that we sell our selves short is much like the first. We become we think we are happy, but it is more a strange sort of comfortable in our mediocrity. We find comfort in what we know. If we grow up in chaos we tend to find chaotic situations to be apart of, rather then striving for peace and tranquility.

It comes back to fear, so often we get stuck on the fear of “failure” because we all want to succeed, right? Well not really, if we fail we know what will happen, but if we succeed that is unknown territory, what then, what are the steps that I take? I have never been there before, what doors will it actually open? All these questions linger in our minds, and we are more afraid of trying to figure out all the unknowns then failing and being exactly where we presently are. And well we know what that’s like, we know how to handle that situation.

So next time you are rocking it in the free world ask yourself am I really more afraid to fail then I am to succeed?

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