12 Journeys

By Nick Smith | My 12 Journeys™ You've been told that your anxiety is a malfunction. You've been treated like your depression is a disease that needs to be managed, medicated, and eliminated so you can get back to "normal." Here's the problem with that. Normal might be killing you. Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just quietly, consistently, day after day — the slow erosion of the distance between who you are and who you were always meant to be. You stop feeling the gap. You stop hurting....

Most people think they're failing because they can't finish what they start. But what if it's not failure stopping you; what if it's protection? The Almost Man isn't held back by laziness or lack of talent. He's held back by a keeper inside him, built from an old wound, that turns the ship around every time the ocean gets real. Maybe you know this man. Maybe you are this man. The way out isn't forcing yourself across the ocean. It's picking up the small boat. One person. One trip. One...

I’ve spent the last year being my own most effective gatekeeper. I’ve had this recurring thought that it’s hard to be rejected when people don’t even know you’re there. There is a specific kind of safety in silence; a fear that if people were to actually see my creations, they might turn them away. It feels easier to stay quiet because the world can’t reject what it doesn't see. That song, that course, that program, they might be greatness in waiting, but I’ll never know because the people...