Failure

It's a tricky thing, existing in the ether of a dream.

I've walked this path for over five years, and I've grown. I've started throwing my hat in the arena, and entered the gauntlet of short story and agent rejections. And despite my efforts to prepare myself for the rejection, it still stings all the same.

Each rejection lays a tiny seed of doubt, an insidious whisper in the back of my mind. What is all this for? I set goals and I fail. I've failed professionally at my job, I've been failing at my goals, and I've failed in that I'm not quite where I feel like I should be at this point in time. I feel like I'm existing in a prolonged state of failure with no signs of it slowing down anytime soon.

And as a result, a question remains. Or, well, several questions remain.

What should I do with all this failure? What is there to do with it? How do I keep moving forward in the face of it all? Is this what everyone faces on this journey? Or is it a sign that I'm not meant for this path? How can I continue to exist when I know what I want to do, but I fail to do it at the level I want myself to be at time and time again?

How can I exist in this prolonged state of failure? Is it simple as trusting God? Trusting that the path set before me, the hard path, the disciplined path, will be the one that leads to the ultimate realization of self?

Existing with failure, walking alongside it, is an interesting thing. A frightening thing to be honest. I've put so much into this journey, so many hours of hard work and mental energy directed to this thing. A gauntlet, one after another in unending succession, with no promise that my efforts will crack through to the Elysian Fields of becoming an agented and published author.

But maybe that's the point. There's no guarantee of anything in this life. No set path for anyone. Just what we put in the world and the distance we travel on the paths set out before us. And I can't look for the approval of others on this path.

Instead, I need to focus on doing what I know to be right. I need to continue trying at my job, pursuing my editing, and trusting God. For although I don't know where this path will ultimately lead, I intend to continue walking it, hoping that it'll lead to the place in which I want to be.

For at the end of the day, unless I quit, that's all I can do. And I've spent far too much time on this dream to quit now.

So that's all I've got for today, and I hope you all have a good one.

Sincerely,

Josh Acocella