It’s probably a characteristic of types like me (and you, if you are reading this) that we prevaricate, procrastinate and generally prevent ourselves from doing things in case we truly fail. And the significant one is right.

I am afraid of failure and my fear has been growing year upon year. My launching myself in different directions is not the work of an unfettered adventurer, but is more the hastily constructed escape plans of one who sees his short-fallings as publically damnable and a possible source of ridicule. Now that I am in a corner, one that cannot be sidestepped, I don’t know what to do. My options have run out. I do not even have the simple choice of fight or flight.

Hoisted by my own petard.

I am looking across my teacher’s desk at a book I read to some students yesterday. It was world book day and…