The long and winding road

So I'm still vision questing, but I think I've finished the part where I took myself apart and am now well on my way towards putting myself back together. I've been trying to be a little bit more open about my real feelings, both personally and professionally, and the most amazing thing has happened. This week, so many people have come up to me and said something like, "I've always wanted to tell you how much I admire it when you (blank), and now I finally feel like I can." So much praise has been heaped upon me for things I've done in the past, and so many people have approached me about starting new projects together, that I am quite speechless. This is making me think that maybe my past approach was wrong-headed.

You see, I always thought that if people knew what I was really like, they wouldn't appreciate it. I thought I was just too different to really fit in here, and so I should just keep my head down and try not to offend anyone. But maybe the reason no one else is doing those things I want to do is because no one else can, and so maybe I should just start to do them and worry about the consequences later.

Fear of being hurt can be a very motivating force, but as one of my favorite authors once wrote, "Sometimes, in the labyrinth, you just need to find a little blood on the wall to know that someone has gone ahead of you." (Trust me, it made perfect sense in the context of the story.) I've always thought that quote was reminding me to learn from the mistakes of others and take guidance from their examples, both positive and negative. But I've been thinking about that quote in another way now. Sometimes in order to be a leader, you have to have left some blood on the wall for others to follow. And in order to do that, you have to have bled. In other words, you don't have to be perfect in order to be an example.