Fear of failure. Fear of success. The Bible says sixty-seven times, “Fear Not”.
Why is this?
I believe that fear is the fastest way to become separated from the “Universal Consciousness“.

Fear of failure:
Here is an individual perfectly capable of opening and running a successful business. He has worked in his field of expertise for many a season, and has perfected his craft, even to the point of inventing ways to make his current bosses business more efficient and cost effective. He has been recognized by his boss as an idea man. However, he has not been recognized for his expertise by salary increases commensurate with his skills and contributions to the business.

He knows he will be successful in his own business, and even take some of his former bosses’ customers with him because he is the one they come to see to work on their projects anyway.
He is the one they come to see to get things done correctly, while his boss sits in his office and says, “What a good worker he is, I don’t know what I would do without him”.
Now here is the conundrum:

What keeps a person, secure with his abilities and expertise from starting his own business?
It is ok that you don’t know the day to day financial things that come with a business, those people can be hired.
How deep do we have to go to seek out that one voice of insecurity that tells this person:
“If you do this you will fail”.
How deep? I think that the comfort of a secure job or career is the motivating factor here.
Not as deep I think as is the next consequence of fear.

Fear of success:
President Ronald Regan said his father was an alcoholic.
I quote, “ My father was an honorable man, but also, an alcoholic, he seemed not to be able to handle success. When things were terrible for the family, he always buckled down and worked hard to bring us to a better place. But once he had overcome adversity, and taken his family from poverty to a better place, he always did something to sabotage it”.

Why does this kind of behavior exist, and what triggers it?
One would think that seeing ones family secure would be enough to make a man happy. For most it is, but what about the ones feel that somehow they should always fail?

What about fear of success?

I’m sure in clinical psychology, this is one of the greatest mysteries. It certainly is to me.
What drives one to feel the need to fail? Personal insecurities, Masochism, feeling that they don’t deserve the blessings that they have worked so hard to bestow on themselves?
I have no answer to this, no matter how much I ponder this. I am still stumped. Why does one want to fail?
If I knew the answer to this one, I could probably solve 90% of the worlds problems, and become rich in the process.
Sorry, I cannot understand why anyone would want to fail, but it happens every day. People sabotage their lives with self destructive behavior, just when things are going the best ever. Then they seem to relish in their own self-imposed misfortune, or blame other people or circumstance. I give up. If you, my readers have an answer, and/or a solution, please let me in on it.

©2008 Walt Hardester