I am reading Paulo Coehlo’s fantastic book “The Zahir“. There is a paragraph on Page 18 that speaks to the syndrome called “Self-esteem Insurance Syndrome” (name made up by me). This syndrome affects many Wannabe entrepreneurs and in general many people who are putting off “identifying their purpose” and taking solid steps towards realizing it. The way I describe the syndrome is simply by not “committing” to what is it that one wants to become. Because if you commit and not get it, you might have trouble with your self-esteem later. So in order to protect your self-esteem sometime in the future, one decides to NOT COMMIT to the dream completely. That way the person is “safely reducing his or her future accountability”

Here is the paragraph from “The Zahir” that explains it brilliantly

“I continue to search for love, I continue to writing songs. When people ask me what I do, I say I’m a writer. When they say they only know my song lyrics, I say that’s just part of my work. When they apologise and say they’ve never read any of my books, I explain that I am working on a project – which is a lie. The truth is that I have money, I have contacts, but what I don’t have is the courage to write a book. My dream is now realizable, but if I try and fail, I don’t know what the rest of my life will be like; that’s why it’s better to live cherishing a dream than face the possibility that it might all come to nothing“

Can it be said any better?