Fear of Success?

           Choosing to succeed can be a scary endeavor.  Taking risks with your life is not comfortable, and fear of success is palpable when your risks can impact loved ones.  More than this, though, is the realization that staying still and making no choice at all, is even more hurtful because you go no where. 

            Fear of success.  That phrase just sounds so ridiculous.  Who could be afraid of succeeding?! It is real though.  Success is just another word for responsibility.  If you open a restaurant that is successful, it becomes more of a responsibility.  You have to keep it that way.  You have to strive to make it more successful every day.  It becomes work. 

            So really, fear of success is just a natural inclination to be lazy and avoid the real hard work of life.  Putting your nose to the grindstone can often lead to scrapes and bruises on said nose.  It is probably a natural fear of pain that keeps us from the scrapes and bruises of failure that prevent us from persevering in success. Is it so painful?  I think the process of success is paved with failures that teach how to succeed.  We shouldn't be afraid to fail, or take it so personally.  Success and failure are often just one attempt away from each other.  What is the reward?  Seeing success in something you’ve poured your blood, sweat, and tears of repeated faulures into is rewarding on a deeper level than just mere satisfaction.     

               It should be easy to choose to succeed, and deep down, we all want that.  The difficulty lies in the follow-through.  The work is what keeps us from it.  Our level of dedication to doing the work required to truly succeed is what differentiates the famous from the unknown.  Getting up after failure has knocked you down requires something from deep within us that is unafraid to fall down more than once.  We have to want it.  We have to embrace the failures of our life to succeed in it.  We have to learn from our mistakes, no matter how painful the process.