Are You Scared of Success? You Might Have Grown Up Poor Like Me

I’ve always sabotaged my best chances

The home I was born and raised in had cement floors, an outhouse, and was barely more than the garage it once was.

One time, I even fell out of my crib and landed on my head on that same cement floor. Probably explains a lot.

Humble beginnings have led to a humble life, though I have tried to do what I can to get away from it. I’d love to be successful, and have made efforts over the years to make that happen, but something has always prevented me from achieving it.

Unfortunately, I have to admit to myself that thing standing in my way, is me.

A big self-sabotage event, and an even bigger regret.

I once ran a computer repair business. This was back in the day when personal computers were becoming cheap enough that everyone could afford it, and the Internet was just becoming a “thing.”

I loved doing it. I even did something none of my competitors did; I offered 24/7 service, whether it was home or business.

Geek-A-Byte Computers was, for all the paperwork said, a success.

I had my little van all decked out. Workbench installed in the back end. Lighting system so I could see what I was doing in the middle of the night. I even had a refrigerator in the thing so I could work without having to go off site for breaks.

I also had an abusive marriage going on and was trying to do what I could to get out of it.

When I was finally able to escape from her clutches, I stopped running the business. I told myself, and others, that I could not stomach the idea of splitting the money I earned from it with such an abusive harpy. I said I was sad about it, but there was nothing else I could do.

While I was bitter about it, and knew it was really the last thing I wanted to do, I sold it off to the lowest bidder and walked away from it all.

I did it, I think, because I was scared to be successful and had the opportunity to make my exit from it.

Sound strange?

It’s happened many other times in my life, too.

There was a time I was finding great success with my books. I loved writing them, and would spend hours a day at it.

I adored putting together plots, talking them over with my wife — she’s an amazing sounding board — before getting back to hacking away at the keys once more.

I hit number one in a category hard to get into on Amazon, saw a lot of sales on Barnes and Noble, and was, by all appearances, on my way to success with it.

Then some personal issues kicked in and I began doing what I always did with my writing. I blamed it for my problems.

I had formulated in my head this idea that whenever I would write, and issues would begin to crop up, it was because I was writing.

I thought I was somehow cursed. If I wasn’t writing so much, this problem wouldn’t have happened. If I wasn’t spending time trying to get words in, that issue wouldn’t crop up.

It was a convenient, and comfortable, way for me to self-sabotage, and I would do it to myself every damn time.

How does all this relate to the past?

Growing up poor, I never understood success. I didn’t have any concept of it.

My dad was an abusive whiskey-drunk who barely worked a day in his life. The rest of my family were all alcoholics, drug addicts, and leeches. None of them would ever lift a finger to help themselves, much less anyone else.

They did not expose me to what success meant or what it could lead my life into.

Even now, at fifty, I have only a rudimentary idea of what it can do for someone’s life. It’s all vicarious, of course, but at least there’s an inkling now.

Those few, and far between, glimmers of success for me, were sparks in the night. Cast off from a fire, they were nothing more than ashes, giving their last, dying gasps.

Have you seen that kind of thing in your own life?

I often wonder if there’s something to the idea of not finding success because you never had success.

Does the lack of it breed fear of it? It happens in so many other areas of our lives, I have come to think it’s at least possible.

Are those of us who grew up so poor we could barely afford lights on in the house, let alone any concept of success, doomed to always feel that way? Or is there some hope for us?

There are, of course, outliers to this. There are, indeed, success stories of people who grew up in poverty moving on to great things. But those seem to be the exceptions, don’t they?

As far as my mental approach to my writing goes, these days I’m in a much better position. I’ve seen issues come up on a personal level, but haven’t blamed my writing on them this time around.

I don’t know. Maybe I have finally broken through some of that trauma and can move on to the next stage with it.

That would be nice.

What about you? Are you finding yourself afraid of success? Do you self-sabotage at the first whiff of it?

Or do you embrace it like we all should?

Other stories from me:

About me:

I am an author with over a dozen books and dozens of short stories published. I have experience with both traditional and self-publishing and love to discuss the pros and cons of both.

Why do I write? Because I am blind and live on woefully low disability payments each month. The government graced me with trying to live on about $700 per month, and I decided to start publishing because I also like to be able to eat.

If you like my work and feel inclined to support it, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi.

Thank you from the depths of my soul for being here. Keep striving to “be the best you that you can be” at this moment.

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