Sitting here in KL airport deciding what to do. I have 4 hours to spare. I thought I might start by writing something down. Going to Korea this time feels a little different. I can almost sense that it will be the last time I travel there from Australia, as though it might be time soon to discover a new land. Maybe I have been away and it’s something about the Australian air, but I find myself wanting to rise above the struggle. Being an English teacher is fun enough, but if I’m not careful it’s going to turn into a profession.
Besides, I don’t want to be a teacher. It pays the bills while I work on writing scripts so that one day I might work in film or TV. But there’s always that uncertainty about pursuing a career in the arts. Namely, the uncertainty of ever finding a job. That shouldn’t be a reason to pause, but it is.
One time, when I was about 12, I decided that I wanted to do a backwards flip. Those days, I lived in a caravan park and there was a little field of grass in the middle. So I went there with my friend and prepared to do my first back flip. I thought it might be easy. All I had to do was throw myself backwards, put my hands over my head and that would be it. I stood there, working up the nerve. Ok, I’ll count to ten I thought. My friends waited while I got to ten. Wait, I said. I need more time. Do you think I’ll make it? They said sure, but I think they just wanted me to get it over with. They were good friends like that. So I stood there, trying to focus. What if I landed on my head? Would I kill myself? No, probably not because it was soft grass. But maybe I might break my neck and not be able to walk again. I stood there for a whole hour, my legs apart and bent slightly, my arms in front of me. It was as though someone had told me to freeze. My friends grew impatient. Are you going to do it or what, they asked. When they were about to leave I knew that I had to do something. I got myself ready for impact and made a half-hearted leap back, not even really trying to flip. I landed on my back and knocked the wind out of my chest. I had tried to compromise between being a hero and being a wimp and had just come out looking stupid.
Life is full of moments like that. Moments that were there to be seized, to be bold and daring. We confront them from time to time in different ways, but usually the thing that faces us offers the same question. What is there to win?/What is there to lose? And, for many of us paralysis or some weak compromise or rationalization follows. We sulk away, vowing to seize the day and gather our rosebuds the next time it happens. But do we? Sadly, no.
I’m sure that you, dear reader, do not have such a thought in your mind. You always act upon your desires and do your utmost to achieve them. You seize every moment and never acknowledge hesitation. Perhaps then it may be difficult to grasp this fear that I describe. It may seem a little odd that people would stop and falter for fear of embarrassment or failure. However if you’re like me, you’ll know it all too well. It takes hold and once you start to freeze, you can’t stop it. And there you’ll stand, like I did for an hour on the lawn in my trailer park. Yet history and long-winded anecdotes aren’t without insight.
The one thing I’ve noticed about my history of inaction and wimpiness is that the win/lose outcome doesn’t even matter. The biggest pain and embarrassment comes from thinking about my own conduct in that situation. I can remember situations where I knew exactly what I had to do. I knew with almost full certainty that it would all work out well, that success was virtually guaranteed. But I didn’t do it. And now, it pains me to think about how feeble that was. And then I get to thinking. All those little things might have added up to one big thing, had I given them a true shot. How many things have been influenced by or rationalized due to fear? I’ll never know.
I don’t want to make out that I was a complete dork growing up. Because there were times where I seized the moment and did what needed to be done. Like the time I was in the first grade and the fifth grade kid was picking on me. I knew that I had to stand up for myself, but I was scared of him. But I bit the bullet and punched him in the face. He left me alone after that. It was a crowning achievement for me at that point of my life. I don’t know why I didn’t learn the lesson right there and then. But then later there were girls, who were even scarier than bullies in a way. Bullies, you beat up or try your hardest to. But girls, well what do you do with them. You like them, but you don’t know why. They’re annoying to be around, they smell funny and yet you still feel that you want them to be yours. The conviction I had for standing up for myself didn’t carry over to them.
The point (and I do have one) is that you just have to act and think only of your own conduct. Forget about outcomes, only how you act. If you act like your own hero then that’s perfect. If you come close, well that’s pretty good too. If you satisfy yourself first, outcomes are so much easier.
So when I’m sitting around now contemplating a career with no secure future or no guarantee of working up some corporate ladder structure I’m faced with the whole outcome dilemma yet again. There are people out there right now who are living their dreams. The only way to become one of those, I realize, is to focus on pursuing those dreams and to forget about the win/lose equation. Maybe I can thank all those times I faltered before for this knowledge.
Mind you, I still know nothing about women.
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