Oh, how you speak to me. Going through the same thing at the moment. And that quote is truly one to live by. Judging from the way you wrote this post (with care and with passion) - I say you have a great shot at full-time writing career.

Best of Luck!

Great post! I can sympathize with you, and whenever I read posts like yours I get my butt in gear!

Getting laid off last December has turned out to be a great thing for me. I didn't like my job, I was thinking of leaving. I had a lot of time on my hands and decided to pursue a passion of mine that had previously been merely an interest. I went ahead and started my own social networking site. I worked with my husband to code it, and launched xelago.com last month. It may just be one of my proudest professional moments.

Good luck on figuring out what to do next, and I hope that your passion of writing comes out!

Great post! I really enjoyed the quote and I think it's a good way of looking at it. We really have to start fearing regret more than we do failure.

Life is short, and it's worth it to take a chance and do all the things you dream of regardless of whether you might fail or not. Failure is something you will learn from, and something you have to accept as a part of life too. You should definitely go for your dreams here because otherwise, you'll always regret not having tried.

On the back of a frame on my desk I have 5 quotes that have defined my career so far. I figure very wise people once thought them, and who am I to question the wise! :) One of them reads "To be ready to fail is to be prepared for success."

I put that one on there because so many people always encourage us as young people to "jump right in", "make a change", "do what makes you happy" but life changing decisions are SO much more than that. For anyone taking the leap, you MUST be willing to have that "fall flat on your face butt naked in front of the world" moment to really succeed. Otherwise, if you hold anything back, then you truly are fearing the failure.

And if it doesn't work out, you don't get to look at it and say "Heck, I gave it my BEST shot and it didn't work out but man I'm glad I did." Instead, when you hold back, you look at it and now REGRET everything you should have done differently.

I say this all as though I'm one of those "wise" people, but truly while I know that's how it's supposed to be I'm desperately striving for the mindframe to do it myself. Good luck to you as you quest for the same grail!

I can totally relate to where you are coming from, and while it's never a good feeling to have the anxiety of not knowing when or where your next pay check is coming, there is a whole lot of opportunity in unemployment. It's actually the perfect time to tackle those projects (like writing) that you are always able to postpone by saying "I just don't have the time" cause now you've got nothing but it! In an economy like this it is hard to justify leaving a job even if you hate it, but being laid off can be a blessing by taking that decision away and giving you the gift of time to reassess your values, goals, and progress towards them. Best of luck!

I have always tried to live my life in such a way that I have no regrets. I can’t imagine how sad it would be to come to the end of life and keep wishing I had done this or that. In my opinion, regret is a harder pill to take.