I’ve been trying to go to sleep for the past two hours, but
this demands to be written, so I’m relenting in the hopes that my brain will
shut off.
Miranda Hart wrote an inspiringly hilarious book called “Is
It Just Me” where she chronicles years of awkward moments, bad jobs and
sticking her foot in her mouth on her journey to achieving something she didn’t
quite dare even dream: becoming a comedian. She gives amazing perspective on
things like manicures (“basically just holding hands with a stranger for
forty-five minutes whilst listening to Enya”), Christmas (“Each year, from at
least November, well, September, well, if I'm honest, May, I look forward to it
hugely”) and the pressures of being a woman (“You may look at me and see a
slightly frayed, wool-clad woman with an inexplicably hefty rucksack, but I
look in the mirror and simply give thanks for all I've opted out of”). She also
talks about the importance of remembering to dream. To dream big. To reach for
the stars, take risks, and keep believing in yourself. In her words, “…holding
onto the bonkers dream might just turn out to be the most marvelous thing you
ever did.”
As most of you readers know, I recently went through another
heartbreak. While that might seem unremarkable in the larger scale of things,
to me heartbreak tends to feel like an atomic bomb in my life. My initial
reaction was simply that this isn’t worth it. It hurts too badly, and I don’t
want to feel it anymore. Inevitably of course, I start to come around because
in the end I really do WANT to find someone. I’m a hopeless romantic. And I
need someone to call my cell phone when I can’t find it.
I recently spent some time with a good friend. He and I
tried dating, and it didn’t work, but we are the best of friends now. He gets
me. He knows me. He thinks that I’m fantastic. He is one of my greatest
cheerleaders. As I left dinner with him a few weeks back, I had the thought, “If
I can end up with someone who views me and treats me the way
he does, all of this pain will have been worth it.”
And that’s the beauty of risk, isn’t it? That risk, in the
end, can pay off! We start businesses, we quit our jobs, we move to New York
for the stage, we participate in clinical trials, we start a new diet, we love again and again
because the potential payoff is worth the potential setback. But . . . what if
there is no payoff? Businesses fail. We end up in dead-end jobs. People take medication, do therapy, change their diet and don't feel better. Is beauty only found in success?
I have a new goal. To be grateful for the moments when I feel
like I failed. Because it means that I tried.
To stop feeling like every dead end means that I screwed something up, that I
missed the road to fantastic glory. I want to be happy for the experiences that
I’ve had, not because they are preparing me to be successful in the future, but
because I had the experience. Because the experience of fighting for it, of risking for it, will be what defines me rather than the end result.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them
better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who
comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and
shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great
enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the
worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor
defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
