Leave All Failure Behind

I was surrounded by a group of people, some of them, my peers. Was this a classroom? A community function?

“I’m the Vice President of Unknown Corporation,” he said. He seemed like an acquaintance but I couldn’t make him out. This thirty-something Hmong man was clean-cut and dressed in business attire. He continued to say more about his work and that he had contemplated becoming the President of a college as a stepping stone to what he currently do.

To the right I overheard a white woman react in amazement, “My god, a stepping stone?! Being president of a college is enough!” That was interesting, I thought. To hear a white person speak so highly of a Hmong man.

The dream I had this morning was disturbing. It reaffirms my biggest fear: becoming insignificant. Whenever I see a Hmong colleague in the news accomplishing some great feat, my body tense up, my stomach churns, and my breathing intensifies. Could these be symptoms of an anxiety attack? I call it my "Leave All Failure Behind" act. For the rest of the day, the sky falls and I become people-little trying to save myself from inevitable doom.

I have always been a competitor and a winner. I refuse to lose. Failure is not an option. There is no second chance in life. And all those clichés I’ve come to believe. I worry so much about this that I’ve developed a disorder called Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or GAD. The condition is exacerbated by an unstable emotional upbringing, of me feeling like I’m always having something to prove.

I do have something to prove. Not to anyone else but myself. I cannot waste anymore years living in mediocrity. I need to feel like I’m doing, executing, leading, achieving,...living! I need to finish my education, get that dream job, find that dream girl, and save our ailing world before the sky falls! I just need change. New surroundings. New people. New stimulation. A new beginning perhaps.