Cardinal Rule Of Following One's Dreams

   Chase your dreams they tell you, and you will live the most satisfying of lives. Shoot for the stars, dare to be great, etc., etc.

  There is no denying those are all encouraging and motivating statements.

   However, there are people who find those words to actually be discouraging, to be crippling.

   Because of a fear. A fear known as atychiphobia in clinical/medical/academic circles, but to the common folk (such as myself) it is known as fear of failure. 

  There are people in this world who attempted to do something with every resource at their disposal - dedicating all of their time, effort, and energy to succeed on some level at developing a skill set or refining a talent or just being as good as they possibly could at something they really enjoyed doing.

   And there are people in this world who made the most imperceptible of attempts to do something, barely utilizing any of the resources at their disposal, with very little commitment timewise, making almost no effort at all, and expending a modicum of energy, trying to succeed on the basest level to develop a skill set or refine a talent or just to be able to be somewhat competent at something they may or may not enjoy doing.

   People from both of those groups have both succeeded wildly and have both failed miserably, but all the people from both of those groups can hold their heads high for the one basic common denominator they share.

   All of those people tried. Yoda may say "Do or do not, there is no try," but Yoda is fatally wrong. The only way to get to "Do" is to try and try and try and try...until you succeed or realise that what you want to do (say, play center for the basketball team despite barely scraping 5'5" in height) is impractical for your particular physical or mental limitations, and it's time to try something else.

   And make no bones about it, try is the operative word here.

   For no matter what any person tells you, be it philosopher, psychologist, politician, or hand puppet, if is far better to try and fail than it is to fail to try.

   Failure to try is what is not an option, not failure itself.