The Possibility of Failure

Talk about an ominous newspaper headline. But it served it’s purpose and got my attention. So I began to read… and found myself identifying with the subject of the story, composer David Lang. Read the article here (www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/issue/story?oid=oid%3A1022399 ). Oddly enough, we are polar opposites. It’s apparently never been one of his goals to be safe. He’s a person who is willing to take chances and that (I think) has been the key to his success. He embraces the creative process with all of its possibilities. It’s something I must learn. It’s one of my biggest fears… the possibility of failure. It’s what I think holds me back from being the successful person I hope to be. All along thinking… what if…? (A loaded question if ever there was one.) The fear of not being successful at my craft is what recently lead me to, play it safe, and take a designing job for a local store. My what if has always been…. “what if they don’t like it?”. Designing under someone elses “label” has allowed me the freedom to take design risks that I otherwise wouldn’t have taken. I now realize that I’ve played it safe for too long, and for too long I’ve relied on custom work and repairs as a means of business. As it turns out, my “riskier” work has been well received, they do like my work.
Maybe now, finally, I can take my foot off the brakes and embrace the possibility of failure and turn it into the possibility of success.