Fear of Failure

By Olivia Macy Leonard, age 15, New York.

It’s just a line
All you have to do is draw a line
A straight, plain, normal line
Nothing more
Just take your pen, pencil, marker
Doesn’t matter what you use
Doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect
Doesn’t matter what color
Doesn’t matter if it’s short or long
But you hesitate for a second 
And then a minute
Then 5 minutes
Now 10 minutes
And that turns into 30 minutes
Soon it’s been an hour
5 hours pass
You realize it’s been a day
Finally, it’s a week later
And you still haven’t drawn that one line
The simple line

Why?

All because you were scared
All because you didn’t want to mess up
All because you wanted it to be perfect

All because you didn’t want to fail.

—Olivia Macy Leonard, age 15, New York.