I remember when I was a kid, my parents would take me down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. There was this merry-go-round there, with this long dispenser holding gold rings that you could grab and then try to throw inside the mouth of this HUGE clown painted on the side of the wall. I would watch older kids grab 2 or 3 of them each time they went by the dispenser and toss them into the clown's mouth, and it looked like so much damn fun. I really wanted to grab some of those rings but I was scared to death--scared of falling off my horse, scared of hurting my hand when I made the grab, etc. I remember one trip, where the whole car ride over, I told myself that I was going to do it; I was going to face my fears and make a grab for the ring. I psyched myself up the whole ride there. I had visualized myself doing it and was so pumped up by the time I got on the ride, I couldn't see any possible way that I could fail. But the minute the merry-go-round started turning, that old fear ripped through my chest. I worried that my hands were so sweaty, that when I reached out, I would fall off my horse and be crushed by the mechanisms below. I was afraid that, should I manage to stay on, the ring would get jammed and I would end up badly cutting my hand. Each time I went around, each time I watched the dispenser approach and then pass me by, I would tell myself that the next time around, I was going to do it. But each time, I passed it--too paralyzed with anxiety to even peel my hands from the pole, just looking at the dispenser helplessly. Even the clown seemed to know that I was fooling myself with its cracked, frozen smile, eternally taunting, knowing that by telling myself, "the next time around," I was just delaying my inevitable defeat by cowardice. I told myself, "the next time around, I'll do it" on the last turn and moments later, with utter disappointment and shame, felt the ride slow down beneath me. I thought to myself with remorse, "If only I had more time, maybe even one more time around, I would have done it. I just needed more time to get ready." But deep down, I knew that I wouldn't have. Deep down, I had told myself, "next time" only to buy myself enough time until the risk of succeeding, the risk of failing had passed and I would inevitably resign myself to the company and self-label of failure, a victim of unfortunate circumstances.

I never did get a ring. And I don't even know if that merry-go-round is there anymore.

Now, years later, supposedly wiser and worldlier, I still believe that I often tragically fool myself. There are things that I want in life, but am so afraid of not getting, that I tell myself, tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll try for it. Tomorrow I'll write that script. Tomorrow I'll ask that guy out. Tomorrow I'll tell the man who has unraveled my soul that I forgive him. And when tomorrow turns into today, I call upon a thousand more tomorrows to erase the hope, to put off the risk, until my life has passed me by and all I have left to show for it is a collection of safe, uneventful yesterdays, dull around the edges from the near-encounters with sheer magic.

There is nothing that shrivels a soul more than regret. So grab that ring, kids. Because at some point, the ride is going to stop and there is nothing more devastating than realizing that tomorrow will never bring back what you could have savored today.