Assignment 10: Parker Carroll

I am scared of a lot of things. There's the basics: spiders, ghosts, growing up and the dark. Then there's the one thing I fear more than anything else, failure. Having my best not be good enough is my biggest fear. If I fail all of the time, effort, and money others have invested towards my success is wasted. I would be failing all of them, as well as myself. "You can't be afraid to fail"- the motivational words of every athletics coach throughout history.I interpret this overused expression to mean if you're afraid to fail you'll never be able to do what it takes to succeed. Which I find to be very untrue. In my opinion, the fear of failure further motivates one to succeed. Although I find fear of failure motivating, failure is not motivation. Another idea often misconstrued by athletes and their coaches. Failure is crippling, indisputable defeat, not motivation. Failure is my biggest fear and well deserving of it. However, as unfortunate as it may be, I will fail. We all will fail at some point or another, its inevitable. We will all fail and we should. We must become familiar with failure and accept it. We must fail in order to succeed. Without knowing failure, how can one truly appreciate success?