EmBRACE FAILURE OR REGRET NOT TRYING

I’d rather fail doing something I love, rather than fail doing something I loath. 

Is it too late to write? 

I heard creativity peaks right before the urge to sleep so I should give it a shot. They say if you are able to fight said urge, you’ll unlock creativity out of the air. 

So let’s put my mind to the test!

For over the past few weeks, I’ve started playing a mental mind trick with myself to escape from any negative wind that blows my way. Simply put, I pretend I’m on a beach. But you know what I’m talking about, those negative thoughts that taste like cold coffee when you’re craving a hot cup. I could go for a hot cup of coffee right now and it’s 11:05pm on a Friday night. Maybe there’s something wrong with me or perhaps a hot cup of coffee just sounds damn comforting, like a warm blanket for the soul. 

While I know this blog should be about positivity, I don’t think it would be authentic of me to pretend like everything is all sunshine and hell yeahs when that isn’t true for myself and many others out there. We all battle with demons and any brain injury survivor reading this would agree they hold a piece of anger close inside because of their misfortune. But everyone has tribulations in their life that make them want to heave rocks off a cliff hundreds of feet into the air. The only problem with that is, what about the people at the bottom of the cliff? And while I’m not angry at anyone, well, maybe there are a few people,  I feel as though I haven’t reached my potential and that is at the core of my frustration.  

I’ve thought many times about dropping everything in life and selling my apartment and my possessions and my car and start couch hopping around Michigan, the country and the world. But then thoughts appear in my head like, what about my career? What about planning for retirement? What about health insurance? What if I get covid-19? 

What would I do? 

I’m tired of thinking about what I’m going to do with my career or what I’m going to become. I’d rather fail doing something I love, rather than fail doing something I despise. 

If the odds are against me, let’s talk about a few odds that have already shaped my life . 

At age 14 I had a brain AVM (arteriovenous malformation) that almost killed me and I recently read that less than 1% of people are born with an AVM, and the odds of a brain AVM bleeding (which happened to me) is 1% to 3% per year. Additionally, the risk of a recurrent brain bleed (which also happened to me) is higher for a short time after the first bleed and people between 11 to 35 years old are at higher risk of bleeding. 

After discovering these facts about my brain injury, it made me think that if less than 1% of people could have what happened to me and only 1% to 3% end up having a bleed as I did, maybe I should reevaluate what I’m doing with my life because the fact that I survived, tells me that my life could have more meaning than I think.