I'm great at making excuses...

Hugh MacLeod, author of Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, calls it 'hiding behind pillars'. Excuses, pillars, waiting for the stars to align...however you refer to it, I'm great at it.

I've always wondered why I'm this way. Why I procrastinate and fabricate reasons for not taking the leap, trying something new, or hell, just working on the project in front of me. And I think I've finally figured it out. Fear. Yup, that's right; I'm afraid. You want to know what I'm afraid of? Well, do you?

I'm afraid that I'll become successful. And I can honestly say that I don't have the first clue how to handle something like that. I'm not even sure how I would define 'success'. Celebrated? Wealthy? Contented? (Insert your own definition here.) I don't know. But the thing is, I know what I've got. I know what to expect from my life on any given day. Oh sure, every once in a while the universe will throw something at me that I wasn't expecting. A death in the family. A cancer diagnosis. The loss of a job. But I know how to deal with those things. It's the unknown that frightens me.

What if I'm not strong enough to handle my life changing for the better? What if I curl up into a little ball and hide in the corner, sucking my thumb? What if I pull the blankets up over my head and pretend that the world doesn't exist? What if...?

Wait a minute...isn't that why I try time and time again to find that one thing that I'm really good at? That thing that will give my life purpose and meaning? That thing that will bring me contentment? To be successful? Yeah, that's right, I remember now...

Fear of the unknown is a stupid waste of time. It sucks all of the creative energy right out of my very marrow. I want my soul back; I want to believe that great, wonderful, stupendous things are out there for me, even if I don't think that I'm ready for them. The universe seems to know when I'm ready (so to speak) for the bad stuff. Why not trust that she also knows when I'm ready for the great stuff?

So that's it. Mark your calendars. Today, April 22, 2015, is the day that I make no more excuses!!! (Okay, I could have made this proclamation a little earlier, so that I could have at least enjoyed a good twelve to fourteen hours of it, but I'll take what I can get.)

No more excuses...I'm going for it! Who's with me?