live my life by answering this question every day: "what would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

I thought it was relevant. Also, I’m obsessed with it entirely.

(also, I would like to note, I LOVE how this goal as grown. 71 people! Love it. :D)

anyway, the quote:

The fears that live inside of us, whatever they are, and however they manifest, prevent us from living our highest potential, as individuals, and as contributors to the human race. If we consciously and vigilantly transmute those fears through compassion for others, and for ourselves, we will know what it is to live a peaceful existance on this planet.

- Gillian Anderson, Actress

I’ve found that failure is one of the biggest things that causes me to hold back in my life. Its always been an underlying (and sometimes not so underlying) fear for me. I’ve never really been one to be “the best” at anything in particular, but every time I fail I’m so hard on myself. I know I shouldn’t be but the emotions just come in such a rush I just can’t control it. I often don’t want to try things that my friends want to and I never understand why. I’ve realized that that fear in the corner of my mind telling me I better not screw it up makes me feel like I might as well just not try. But success only comes on the shirttails of failure, so its time to stop worrying so much and really just live…

go for anything, and never be afraid of the outcome.

That’s the title of a book on CD that I’m listening to during my commute. It’s about women and their need to negotiate in their professional and personal lives, something that they rarely do.

So far, (I have a short commute, so I haven’t listened to much yet), the authors say that you need to assume that everything is open for negotiation, and that you have to ask for what you want at work and home. They share stories of situations where people could have had things (raises, promotions, better working conditions, more help with the housework, etc.) they wanted, but they didn’t ask, because they didn’t assume they could get it. Then they found out they could have had it all along.

As I hear these stories, I notice that I keep thinking “Oh, but my situation is different.” or “Oh, but I could never…” and I wonder how much of that is resistance. I’ll have to work through that.

Today I spoke to E about my desires to freelance when the baby comes.

I told her that I didn’t really think it could work financially with Frog’s salary, but I was looking into my options and examining all the possibilities.

I realize now that just having that conversation with her was a step in the right direction. A small step, but a step nonetheless.

Some quotes for inspiration:

“You can not build a reputation on what you plan to do.”
-Henry Ford (yes, he was an antisemitic ass, but still a good quote from him)

“First say to yourself what you would be, then do what you have to do.”
-Epictetus

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt

“Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.”
-some dude I am too lazy to Google right now

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
-Aristotle

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway; You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt

“If a voice inside you says ‘You cannot paint’, by all means start to paint, and the voice will go away.”
-Picasso

“It is time to declare my own intentions, and stick to my own convictions.”
-a really smart woman who wrote me a letter

I am usually not a quotey-type gal, but these really resonate with what I am trying to do and how I am trying to live. Especially the last one, which I wish to embrace and adopt as my own actions.

This is always a mantra of mine and one of the very best ones to live by I think. We all have our times where we may not be but for the most part I like to think that this is the philosophy of my life.

“Sometimes Life just get’s in the way.” Thomas Purtell said that. And he’s right. I have tried to live my life as most of the others have stated: Realistically Optomistic, but sometimes life does get in the way. The world system (whihc is a major obstacle, other people (which is another major obstacle), to natural disasters and so on – do have influence on whether we succeed or fail. I believe that’s why so many inventors and great writers and so forth, became “reclusive” – because other people and such kept getting in their way to accomplishing that which they were trying to do. I myself have experienced this; from the naysayers to the those who are just plain old nusiances. However, thouh this has knocked me down at carious times in life, I just have to get back up, dust myself off, and plunge on again – something inside just won’t let me quit; and believe me there have been times where I have definitely wanted to quit.
Have grrrrreat day!!

I have heard it said “Just think of what you could achieve if you knew you couldn’t fail.” But I don’t know who it was that said it – and upon an Inet search nothing came up – other than this site which came close.

..I’ve kind of already done this. I try to believe that anything is possible if you set your mind to it and even if you fail the first time, if you keep trying/practicing you will eventually reach your goal.

but in an ideal world, I would fly without using any sort of mechanical devices.