Augh! Look out! It's the Success Beast!

Augh! Look Out! It's the Success Beast!
By Monika McDole

I think I might have a fear of success. It's the only way I can explain
the weird heaviness that overtakes my limbs at the sheer thought of all
that goes into making a successful life. If I didn't approach my life
obliquely, sort of sidling up to it like you would a skittish horse in
the pasture (only instead of a halter, I hold my plans for the future
behind my back), I'd never get anywhere.
"Me? Oh, I'm only out for a bit of a stroll." I say casually, when I
embark on a new plan for making my life more successful, "Why look
here, at all the little possibilities blooming in this nice lane. Why,
I could do anything with my life, couldn't I? I could be as staid and
solid as this little Black-Eyed Susan or as wild and exotic as this
Foxglove... oh, don't mind me at all..."
And still Life or Success or whatever the heck name that creature on
the loose goes by, it still backs, snorting and blowing away from me
and darts over the far hill.

So you can see why I would find this whole process draining. Much
better to stay curled up on the couch with a good book (written by
someone else) and just look at Life or Fate or whatever, grazing away
in the cosmic pasture, having little or nothing to do with my life as I
know it.
But of course, me being me, I can't be satisfied with that. Whether it
is a function of my age, my astrological sign (I'm a Gemini) or my
low-fat diet, I find myself speculatively eying that beastie, thinking,
"If only I could get a hold of him, I could saddle him up and off we'd
go!"
And my head is filled with images of me, soaring through time and space
on a glorious high-headed rarefied horse suitably fitted out for the
grand dreams we will enact together.

Now, it could be that this is just a by-product of my admittedly
distracting obsession with horses, and has nothing to do with success
or lack thereof in my life at all. But I think there are darker forces
at work here.
I think the subconscious speaks to us in terms we can understand, using
whatever metaphors are to hand. My subconscious, probably entering my
conscious and unceremoniously tripping over a manure pile whilst coming
in the gate, recognized a primary drive when it saw one, took the
imagery and ran.
That's the only reason I can think of for all of the images, fantasies
and suppositions of my convoluted inner self to have a common equine
motif. I mean, it just seems passing strange to think that horses are
the delivery method of everyone's psyche, isn't it? Do horses figure
prominently in your dreams and aspirations?
Maybe I should be scientific about this and do an unofficial
poll...

What did Freud say about horses? See, I know so little about this whole
thing. I really do need to educate myself. After all, I'm almost 30
now, and I'm starting to hear the vague clamoring of my Professional
Clock (My Biological Clock isn't a factor, it having no batteries as a
result of my Lack of Maternal Urge having ripped them out to power her
remote control). I feel, somehow, that if I am going to be successful,
it had better be soon, or never.
This may have something to do with the industry I'm wanting to get back
into; namely, the entertainment industry.
The entertainment industry, as we all have noticed, is consumed with
the adoration and worship of Youth. If many of our sex symbols get any
younger, they'll be sporting Pampers Pull-Ups to match their push-up
bras. Most of the male sex symbols on offer are so young that I think
I'd be classed a pedophile if I found them attractive.

But I digress. The point is that I'm not at all sure that success is
quite as easy to achieve as I had first thought. I'll have to do some
more research on the issue, now that I'm in earnest about this- and I
am, I am!- but perhaps the answer lies in one of my books on training
the young horse, rather than in one of my books on Success Through
Determination.
Maybe I'll start carrying a halter and carrots with me everywhere I
go...