Today, I got to thinking a lot about success and failure lately, because with everything, it feels like I’m treading a fine line between failure and success. Every so often, the lane opens up wide and I can run far and around, speeding to my next destination. On the other hand, sometimes I feel like walking a tightrope, and that’s when things get a little nerve-wracking. How does one reassure oneself that they’re going to make it, when that rope isn’t as tight as you’d like, and you don’t have a safety net at the bottom to possibly reattempt this next stunt?

Amber says, “Take a risk.“

It’s time to write that novel, take that trip, work on passing the BAR, start that business. It’s a jump and a risk but it’s just as hard as trying to find a job these days.  So you may as well try, while you have the support of all of America out here trying to grind it out too.

I’m not saying everyone give up your day job and move to Costa Rica, but do consider that time you are spending worried about things collapsing around you, could be better spent creating the kind of environment you have wanted all along anyway.  And no one is going to fault you if it doesn’t work out: it’s hard times for everyone.

For most of my life, I didn’t even know what “bull” and “bear” markets meant, nor did I know what the lavish life meant except on television and those random visits to someone else’s home. And for the millions who lived like I did, we may have been used to certain things like water, heat, and food on the table (sometimes), and we know how to handle a recession much better than those who have had all along. But it doesn’t mean for us, or anyone else for that matter, that taking risks doesn’t involve any greater reward … or punishment for that matter.

Those of us who are constantly asked to make the hard decisions (mainly because of our history of doing exactly that) now have environmental conditions under which our skills will be tested. I don’t profess to be a master at these things, but in general, wherever I turn, I’m asked to make the tough decisions, and the only true “Spider-sense” that I have is my gut, and the ability to make that split-decision. Yet, faced with so many of them at the same time, it becomes that much harder to think accurately about them.

It doesn’t mean that I haven’t been happy with the decisions I’ve made so far either. Every good decision I’ve made thus far has brought along a new and soul-digging set of challenges, ones that I often foresee or at least see coming around the corner. From my personal life to the choices I’ve made on this platform, I can’t say I have any regrets about any of them.

What I will say, though, is that I kinda wish I had a crystal ball, to see if all these means really drive me to my end. If I’m thinking 5, 10, 15, 20 years into the future, will everything I’m doing now result in positive results in those milestones I’m ambitiously striving for?

No one can ever be absolutely sure.

Here’s hoping that whatever happens, I shall not fall.

Jose, who never metaphor he didn’t like …