Why bother?

It can’t be done.

Bad idea.



We’ve all heard it at one time or another – that not-so-little voice in our heads that gently whispers, “YOU SUCK.” For the purposes of this post, it shall be called “George.” (My apologies to all the Georges who are reading this. Nothing personal. It’s just a whole lot easier to type than “that not-so-little-voice-in-our-heads.”)

Poor George. Every self-help book out there tells us to ignore him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just doing his job. In fact, I’m seriously thinking about including him in the Acknowledgements section of BEFORE EVER AFTER. Without George’s help, there’d probably be no novel – or for that matter, anything else in this world that people have bothered to dream up and create.

The airplane, Frappuccinos, Spanx…I’m pretty sure that none of them came into being without at least a shade of doubt crossing the minds of their creators.

Umm…Oliver, don’t we want to test this baby out on a cat first?

Frozen coffee…seriously?

But the girdle’s already been invented.

I’m guessing though that we are sipping our tall decaf caramel frappuccinos with no whip cream today, not in spite of doubt, but because of it.

Doubt is often pictured as a wall we're staring at. But what if that wall wasn't in front of us? What if it was behind us - a brick border defining everything we’ve seen, heard, and done so far? And what if it was put there so that we would have something to push against to drive ourselves further into that moment where our insides twists, our hearts race, and we wonder what the hell we were thinking and why we didn’t we think of doing it sooner? Would we think better of George then?

So George, this is for you my old friend. Whisper loudly and often.