"Audaces fortuna iuvat"
- Virgil
The translation for this is "Fortune favors the bold." And this is true! In fact, another latin expression, "Qui audet adipiscitur" adorns the insignia of the British SAS. The translation of which is, "He who dares wins."
In my experience, this is true. The person who is bold, the person who dares...they may "win." But...we should not just stop there.
You know what else favors the bold? Failing. You know what happens when "he who dares" meets "them's the breaks" -> public (and sometimes catastrophic) floundering. We should not be so keen on looking at only one possible outcome. If you choose to accept the hero's journey of your own story and attempt change, you will be faced with two possible outcomes:
1. Succeeding.
2. Failing.
Neither is guaranteed, and sometimes circumstances or chance play a factor in that outcome. But this is crucial to keep in mind. Without boldness, without daring, without the bravery to be vulnerable to say - I don't know, I need help, or I am out of control...there is no possibility of "fortune," only a slow and certain descent where failing moves from a circumstantial judgment to an existential one. Will you be brave enough to risk a legacy that says, "She tried and failed" because of the possibility that "She tried and succeeded?" Or will you, through inaction, be etched with, "She dared not and feared too greatly, and therefore did not."
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Le Quatrième Pentamètre
Poetryjournal. This happened this evening. I spent the last 18 months deep in thought. What sort of book did people want? A memoir? A how-to? A digital book? A print book? What sort of font? What sort of line spacing and margins and... And for 18 months...
