Admittedly, I have a fear of failure. I fear that one day I will wake up and realize that I have failed. That it is all over, and it is just time to wait out life. Unfortunately, my potential failure is not the only failure that worries me. I worry about anything and all things failing.

When a new show launches on one of the major networks – no matter how terrible it is – I worry that it will be canceled. Arrested Development’s ratings failure brought tears to my heart and blood to my eyes. Will 30 Rock suffer the same fate? I can’t believe that all those good people – actors, writers, cameramen, make-up artists, etc. – could be laid off in a second’s notice. Oh, the thought!

When I drive by a car dealership, I can’t help but think of the poor guy inside trying to sell someone a car who is not sure what they want. They don’t want to spend that much, they tell the salesman. But there’s a rebate! For the love of God, there’s a rebate. Please buy the car from this salesman. If he doesn’t sell it to you, he’s going to feel bad.

It’s hard for me to watch sports. I don’t have a favorite team. I just look at the team that is losing with such sad eyes and hope some miracle picks them up from the bottom of the barrel and lifts them to the heights of victory. Sometimes this happens. But then I start to look at the other team. Once full of promise and pride, the team begins to look like a bunch of downtrodden orphans. Oh, you poor guys. Come on. Hang in there. Please, oh please dear lord, let it be a tie.

And what about the daily fate of so many blue-chip stocks? IBM, DuPont, Exxon. Each day I cross my fingers that these trademarks of success have the wherewithal to move up – even if it’s only a half-point – before the day’s trading comes to an end. I watch the ticker at the bottom of CNBC with my hands covering my eyes, spreading my fingers ever so slightly as to see the fateful series of plusses and minuses that scroll by.

11:30 p.m. 7-11. Chicago. While I patiently wait to purchase a bottle of Unweetened Lipton Original Iced Tea, a black woman rattles off a series of numbers to the cashier. Let these numbers be the ones, I pray. Please don’t let this woman discover that she bought 7 lottery tickets for nothing. And please let this be the first time that she has ever spent a dollar on the lottery. My body shakes and I bite my lip just thinking about the possibility that she has been buying these tickets every week for the past 10 years, each week gaining another notch on her belt of failure.

Job Interviews. Jeapordy Contestants. Marketing campaigns. Israel. Lebanon. Space Shuttle Discovery. Brad and Angelina. Midterm Elections. American Idol. Electric Energy Grids….I can’t bare the thought. Please, for the sake of me sleeping at night, succeed.

24/07/2006
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