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Writer's pictureJoshua Rios

First Step

Updated: Jan 14, 2022

The Journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Maybe you’ve heard that quote before in one form or another. I heard it sometime during high school. It was during my “wise quotes” stage, where I spent time looking up concise statements that could enlighten me. Doesn’t every teenager go through this stage? The quote still makes me excited because no matter how many ways I look at it, it is always true.

That is why it’s still frustrating to have gone this long since hearing that quote and still have trouble taking that first step. Instead, I completely discourage myself by focusing on the journey; it’ll make me change, grow, mature… I might face rejection or royally screw up… I could embarrass myself, make mistakes—there’s so much that could go wrong!

And then there is that nagging voice to contend with, “if you haven’t done it by now, just give up.”

That voice is the worst. Whose side is it on anyway? Why is it even there?

A friend and I were having a video chat one night during the pandemic and we came up with a little quote together. It went something like this…

“Instead of focusing on the possibility of failure, why not focus on the probability of success?”

Hmm... What do we choose to focus on?

It takes one to know the other. I’ve known failure before. And what happened? I survived. I learned from it. And in fact, it helped me succeed in the long run.

Failure is not a thing to be afraid of. It is a thing we must count on, accept, come to terms with, and meet just enough times until we are sick of it and no longer accept it.

Failure is nothing more than a simple, “no.” But not a definite and forever “no.”

It’s more like, “no, that doesn’t work. But you are free to keep trying until you get it right.”

Now obviously, this would not apply in all cases. Remember, I’m an artist, writer, and musician. If I step on stage and forget all the words to my song and have to make them up as I go along, I’m going to step off feeling like I failed. And you know what? I did. But that won’t stop me from being better prepared my next time around.

If you want to go road skiing behind your friends’ truck in the middle of an open highway, the failure you meet might not yield you a second chance. But then again, I wouldn’t know what you were trying to achieve anyway.

So please, take my words within context.

All things in moderation.

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