Someone pointed out a snippet of Pinkie Apple Pie to me, and I realize it's worth commenting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=chJYQz8xZco

In case you were wondering, this is about the "leap of faith" theme.

And it's often used in a popculture-like way, claiming that if you overcome your fear of the leap, you will not fall; fear preventing you from succeeding.

But here's the thing: It also prevents you from failing.

Encouraging people like that can actually (if not succeed by pure chance) backfire. For success to ensue, optimism needs to be paired with skillfulness. And even skillfulness can be of little use if luck is bad.

To me, based on my life experiences and observations of other people's walks of life, the more reality-based version of leap-of-faith is that in order to not be afraid of making that leap, one has to be ready to fail (and continue nevertheless). Only then can one continue to try and fail until success is achieved. And if there's even the slightest remnant of expectation that following exactly that philosophy will yield success, you better grab a cushion. Also, success doesn't have to last/repeat, so you better have no expectations at all, which is probably easiest when doing what you love.

Don't think "If I overcome the fear, I will succeed!", because then you might make a very painful experience.

Be ready to fail and continue. If it's the right thing to do for you, then sooner or later you have to do it anyway. Doing what you love makes this easiest, but it still might not feel easy at all.

That being said ... If there's time for a parachute to open,...

...it really IS deep!