You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It Too...Neither Could Achilles
In the original legend of Achilles he was given a choice between a long life of obscurity or a short life of great fame. I value growth yet want to feel permanently competent, begrudgingly admitting that I cannot be learning and stretching without discomfort and failure.
And we say to my daughter, “There is no courage without fear.” Sometimes we want something new. But without pain. Without changing. We want to try once and ace it.
My mentor used to say,”If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying hard enough.” And my husband the scientist quotes his hero, “Experts have made more mistakes in a specific field than anyone else.”
If you, like me, are out there trying something new, here’s to the clumsy two steps forward, one step back. Here’s to overdoing it, tacking and course correcting, being clumsy, and overcorrecting to the other side.
Here’s to the long journey, one clumsy step at a time.