Back in January of 2016, I started a blog entitled, OneYearToFail and I wrote…

“What would you do if you could not fail?”

How many times have you asked yourself this question? It seems like a wonderful way to motivate you to reach for your dreams. However, when Elizabeth Gilbert interviewed Brené Brown for her Magic Lesson’s Podcast series, they agreed that a more important question actually is:

“What would you do if you knew you would ALWAYS fail?”

What do you love to do enough even if success never materializes? What would you keep trying to accomplish if no matter how many times you try, you never succeed?

I love to write and talk about women’s issues, integrative healthcare, and authentic communication while also exploring mind-body techniques. But truth be told, ever since my multiple sclerosis diagnosis my sole focus has become trying to figure out how to overcome multiple sclerosis.

So if I tweaked the question a bit to, “What would you do if you knew you might, always fail?” The answers always are, Figure out how to walk correctly again.  Learn how to live well with MS.  Or better yet, Figure out how to cure myself of this horrific disease.

No matter how often I’ve failed since my September 2009 diagnosis, it’s honestly the only thing I think about even though I rarely succeeded AND continued to get worse month after month. So I wondered, What if I gave myself an entire year to fail fabulously?  What could I learn if I not only welcomed but embraced failure instead of begrudgingly butting against it day after day?

So that’s the plan. To be willing to risk failure daily while attempting to stumble on a spectacular success. I have a one year to fail to see what I can learn.

And just to be clear, I don’t see this as something negative. By planning to fail each day, and being open with said failures, I’m not only prepared for the possibility but also better able to stand my ground and keep going in spite of it.

November 2016 Postscript: I didn’t have a lot of failures, but my successes were so small, writing about them seemed strange.  Or maybe, I’m just not talented enough to make moving my 3rd toe, 2 millimeters an interesting blog post.  So I stopped blogging.

Overcoming a disease isn’t sexy, fast, or cool.  It’s tedious, bizarre and above all, non-linear and therefore hard to put into words.

But people tell me that I should blog more and express myself.  Others postulate that I need an outlet if I ever want to get better.  So I’m back at it with a new name (mine) that allows me to focus on anything I want.

January 2017 Postscript: Now that I wear a dynamic bracing solution (DBS) brace, many of my posts (but not all) are about my quest to walk better with MS.