When it comes to doing something that counts, they say to not be afraid. To jump. That you’re not afraid of heights, you’re afraid of falling.

It’s the truth: you are afraid of falling, but you’re also afraid of failing. The difference is the “i” and it’s a crucial one. The difference is how much of self you bring to the uncontrolled process of meeting the ground. When you fall, there’s no inherent blame but when you fail, a grey cloud hovers.

The arc of the American narrative makes failure a prerequisite to whatever comes next, but it does so with a briefcase full of judgment. There’s an assumption that failure will lead to a future with easy external measures of success. Those are the stories in the magazines, but the ones with abandoned dreams remain without headlines.

What does it actually mean to fail? The very word discounts the process and shines a flashlight on the result. Success is pitched as a promise of a polished gold statue that few of us will ever touch, but we’ll barter precious conscious minutes to try and bathe in its prosperous glow.

Falling and failing both mean meeting the ground. When you fall, you may be able to roll away with a bruise and a story but corporeal injury is a distinct possibility. When you fail, you might be able to recover your sense of self, but perhaps not.

Can you recover from one and not the other - can you fail but not fall? Is it really as simple as the way you look at yourself? If your foundation is built on something more solid than sand, it may be possible to fail but not fall. That even when others point a finger and say otherwise you won’t fall into lockstep. If you’re one of the lucky few who believes you can fail and remain fundamentally the same, then you won’t have fallen at all. You’ll be one of those maddening people for whom externally apparent screwups don’t mean derailment. Those people have a beer, smile ruefully, and carry on.

Good for them. I will never be among their ranks. Failure is terrifying and should be dodged like a punch. But the price of this fear is a poverty of experience that I’ll never be able to fathom. It’s prevented me from taking the paths where both failure and falling would have benefited. I can only follow the threads of the me’s that will never be through stories. If I could go back to the versions of myself that allowed fear to keep me from the edge of the cliff, I would say this.

Jump into that canyon of probable shame. Make it good because no matter what, you will fall. Leap into the void knowing that you’re doing both the falling and failing. Both will happen in quiet rooms and hidden corners and alone in bed in the afternoon. Both will happen when you’re surrounded with people but a gaping cushion of silence prevents anyone from taking your hand and saying I understand.

It won’t help to stay in the airplane until it’s safely on the ground because you will still have fallen. It will be the descent of regret and the raining of has-beens. They won’t be as painful in the moment but over time, they will multiply to haunt you in the dark.

You can be afraid and also function. You can be afraid and you can be you. It isn’t easy and it isn’t forever and it isn’t something that you’ll get used to.

But it is necessary because when you are afraid, you shine a flashlight on your most vital self. Making friends with a piece of her means that neither failure nor falling will bring you all the way down.

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