What holds some of us back

There’s an old saying floating around “what would you do if you knew you could not fail?”  There are many things like this that show up as memes on my Facebook feed.

I would counter this with: what would happen if you got everything you ever wanted, and it wasn’t what you wanted (to quote a U2 lyric)?  What if you did the work to live your perfect life, and you were still unhappy?  What then?

I suppose practically, you would then need to introspect, and determine what was lacking.  But also practically, it would be terrifying and extremely disappointing.  Terrifying, because here you are in this life that none of us really understand, and you have taken your best guess, and it wasn’t good enough.

This background fear haunts many of us, I think.  Certainly, it haunts me, I realize this morning.  What happens if I do my actual best, and feel exactly the way I feel otherwise?  What then?

If you cannot find small pleasures where you are, now, then it is unlikely you will find them anywhere else.  Champions, the people who win, treasure the small victories of one good pass, one good route, one good block, a PR in the weight room.  That is how they endure the work to be the best.

The ones who are driven by other things routinely go into severe depressions when they win.  This is apparently quite common for Olympic athletes, especially the ones who win Gold.  What else is there left?  What if their drive comes from a primal shame, as was for example apparently the case with Greg LeMonde, who was molested as a child?

I am perhaps creating difficulties where none need exist, but I realize that this is a fear for me, at least.  This is most likely behind most or all of my inconsistencies.

It’s an odd thing with feelings: they cannot be predicted.  You have to do the work, then see what happens.  I have more than once been in despair one minute, then felt fine the next.  How does that work?  How does an emotional state change that seems impossible become possible?  How can a walk outdoors, or a piece of music, or a phone call from a friend completely change how we feel? 

Phrased another way, how DO we learn to deal with the mutability of our nervous systems?  Is the question not why people go and stay mad, and rather how and in what very limited circumstances people achieve and maintain sanity?

This speculation, itself, makes me feel better.  We are truly astonishing and strange creatures.  We are miracles, one after the other.