Thursday, 03 June 2004
 Dear God,
As everyone around me pursues greater things, I can't help but acknowledge the total lack of success in my life. It’s always like I’m the edge of something great, while my friends are actually doing that great something. To make things worse, while they are very happy with their real successes, I can’t imagine that I’d be happy pursuing them. Yet I still can’t define what it that I would like pursuing. God, will I get my come-uppance?
Sincerely,
Agonizing Failure in Alberta
Dear Agony,
Don’t feel alone. So listen carefully.
The truth is that everyone at some point in their lives has experienced this sensation. Especially geniuses. In fact, for the 5 years before Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity, he was wallowing in self pity, rolling and tangling himself in his bedsheets, unable to get himself to do anything. Then, on the night of November 3rd, 1907, Einstein was reading the newspaper when the theory suddenly struck him. For the next two hours, he wrote it out furiously and the next day he published it. Unbeknownst to the people around him (even though he secretly anticipated it) that day forever would forever the world…and it came out of nowhere! Better yet, it could only come about because of the incredible lack of success or doing anything for those five years. Always made fun of for his persistent failures, Einstein got his come-uppance in a big way. His surreptitious sneers at the dopes around him were finally respected.
So don’t think it can’t happen to you. The less you succeed over longer and longer periods of time, the more success is building up at your bowels just waiting to push through in a bloody explosion. What do you think I’ve been doing for the last 2,000 years? I’m waiting for that moment of inspiration!
So good luck on everything. And maybe someday I will get my come-uppance, too! But you better get yours before I get mine, you know?
God
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