Tragic hero of the here and now

I’ve been dwelling on the idea of failure so much lately, I’ve thought about taking my name off this blog and just calling it #FAIL. While failure has been a thing I’ve been coming back to time and again this past week, I know I can’t obsess over it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about failure, it’s that living in one’s own mind is the greatest failure of all.

Steven Pressfield calls this the Resistance, an invisible force that stands in the way of turning the inner creative energy of your mind into something tangible and real. It’s the Resistance that tells us we need to be inspired in order to start something. It’s the Resistance that tells us to fear the outcome of what we create.

It’s the Resistance that puts us in danger of becoming a true failure.

F. Scott Fitzgerald created the character Gatsby to show us that money and wealth does not protect us from becoming a failure in the love department. Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman characterized the failure of a destined common man obsessed with greatness. Both are the tragic heroes of their generation and are still relevant today.

If I had to add one more tragic hero to the list, it would be the person who succumbed to the Resistance and refused to fail. It’s the person who never acts on behalf of himself or others to achieve the incredible potential that he has. It’s the person who stays confined in his own mind, fearing that an obstacle in his path means the end of his road. It’s the person who has great intentions but never does anything to make them happen.

That’s the greatest failure I can imagine and the greatest tragedy that’s being written every day.