How many of you have encountered a true Burgabesch?
It’s a slithering, slimy creature that sneaks into your room in the later hours. It leaves a sticky trail across the carpet to the foot you’ve left dangling off the edge of the bed. Then, while you’re busy editing your manuscript, constructing emails and trying your hardest to pull together a book you hope people will respond to… the Burgabesch bites deep into your ankle.
Its poisonous venom numbs the nerves around your tendon, so you feel only a small twitch before going back to what you were working on.
Slowly, you begin to look at your edits and think, “This is stupid. No one will buy this book.”
Later still, you wonder, “What am I doing? This is crazy. I can’t possibly pull this off. Who do I think I am?”
And all the while, the Burgabesch is feeding, getting fat on your self-doubt. “I have to back out now, before this gets over my head.”
“This book is awful. People will be embarrassed for me.”
Finally, in the early hours of morning, you’ve convinced yourself to scrap the whole thing. To toss years of work in the trash and go back to waiting tables. Back to something familiar. Something safe.
The Burgabesch has had its fill.
By dawn you’ll wake up wondering what happened last night, why the fifth draft of your manuscript is scattered around trash.
But then with coffee and daylight, Burgabesch doubts are driven into the shadows. You pick up your editing pen and think, “It might suck, but I’ve come too far to give up now.”
And you get back to work.
At least until the Burgabesch makes his slick trail across the floor toward your ankle after sunset.
It seems the trick to defeating a Burgabesch, is to keep starting over every morning. Outlast it. Because one day, you’ll be far enough down the path – the Burgabesch won’t find anything worth feeding on.
And friends. Good friends. I’m very blessed, very lucky to have good people in my corner. I suspect the Burgabesch has much less from me than others who are not so rich in community.
If you happen to catch a Burgabesch as it feeds on you. Squish it. Those at the beginning of a fragile, uncertain path have no energy to spare for such a negative creature.
What’s your Burgabesch story?
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