Today is a good day to write about failure, because today I was told that nothing I say is important – a defeating and discouraging thought, especially for a writer. They are words meant to wound, an intention that leads others to self-doubt.

Most people, and particularly, most writers, struggle with self-doubt at one time or another. At times it can be paralyzing, at others infuriating, but always it carries the possibility that it will win the war for your spirit, especially if the war has been a long-time running.

I recalled the words of award-winning romance and science fiction writer for teens, P.C. Cast:  “I seek strength, not to be greater than others, but to fight my greatest enemy, the doubts within myself.”  I read them and nod my head in understanding … and empathy.

Often times I have rummaged through the worn shelves of a second hand bookstore, called by the pages which beckon me to open them and read the treasure inside. A thought that too often comes to mind on those occasions is my imagined reality that the world does not need more writing, especially from me.  It needs more respect, more love, put into action; more generosity to make someone’s life better, more presence so the self-doubt and sense of failure of those who are lonely may be dispelled.

Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet, novelist and author of “The Handmaid Tale,” describes failure as “just another name for much of real life: much of what we set out to accomplish ends in failure, at least in our own eyes. Who set the bar so high that most of our attempts to sail gracefully over it on the viewless wings of Poesy end in an undignified scramble or a nasty fall into the mud? Who told us we had to succeed at any cost?”

We are our worst enemy. We can be hard on ourselves, and that pressure is surely magnified when we hear our self-doubt mouthed by someone else. To escape the damage we must never allow those words to destroy our sense of self-worth. I once read that failure is an event, never a person. When our failures expose our self-doubt we must be mindful that we are not our failures. They are our lessons. We do well when we choose to learn from them.

Writers are not alone in this struggle. Anyone who desires to achieve something can suffer with self-doubt. One of my favorite artists, Vincent Van Gogh, seemed to live in a constant crisis of self-doubt and suffered enough to be confined to an institution at times.  He is as well known for cutting off part of his ear as he is for his painting.  Still, he wrote, “"If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."

For my writer friends, those who do and those who would love to, I would encourage you to write, even in times of self-doubt, and leave you with the thought of Mexican writer Don Miguel Ruiz: “Your word is the power that you have to create; it is a gift.”   Use it well.