“I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”~J.K. Rowling
I just hopped off the treadmill after an invigorating work out. I’m not one to pack running sneakers and workout clothes when I travel, so lots of travel means no time for fitness. When I’m home, I definitely turn up and make up for lost time!
Though Soulcycle is always fun, most days I just hop on the treadmill for about an hour and watch a mixture of ratchet and educational videos on Youtube. Today, I stumbled upon an interview Oprah did with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling:
This video totally spoke to me. Oprah is Queen, obviously, but I loved hearing J.K. Rowling effuse about her love of writing. She admitted that she was close to homeless before she became the first billionaire author. Yes. She made a billion by writing. #GOALS.
The video includes a snippet of a speech Rowling gave at Harvard’s commencement, where she said:
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
See the full speech here:
Her speech truly resonated me, as I remember the day I was walking around Paris with an overdrafted bank account and no way to pay my rent (and a landlord who was not trying to hear it!). I felt terrible, but I realized I was still alive. Paris was breathtakingly beautiful. My greatest fear had come to fruition, but it hadn’t killed me. And ultimately what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
As I wrote in The Bomb Life:
Fear can paralyze you from moving. Fear paralyzed me for years as I contemplated the complexities intrinsic to up and moving to a foreign country with no savings and $30,000 in debt. When I finally decided to say “fuck it” there were so many naysayers, including my parents who feared that I’d be shiftless and poverty stricken. My parents were somewhat right about the poverty part, but I learned how to live with less, stretch 60 Euros for a week, leave the party before the metro closed instead of taking a cab, politely decline dinner and make spaghetti with meat sauce at home. Being at negative was not ideal, but it wasn’t the end of the world.
And as I walked around Paris, taking in all the free sights and sounds, marveling at all the gilded statues and impressive buildings, I realized how silly I was to fear being without. If I could look back at the secure life I had in New York: the 10-6 job, the great apartment in a nice area of Brooklyn coupled with the sheer boredom I experienced every day and the pain I felt when consistently passed over for promotions, I’d trade it any day for the check-bouncing, credit-ruining beauty of Europe.
My lowest, most tenuous moment created the best story. I learned so many lessons about myself and about people. If I hadn’t taken that risk and hit rock bottom, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in today.
Art inspires art, so I was inspired to leave this little message today. Don’t be afraid to fail. Failing, in fact, is a part of life. And you never know what you’re capable of until you strip everything away and focus on what really matters.
Love & Light,
