After getting beaten over the head, time and again these past few weeks with the theme of “failure,” both my own and others, I decided it was time to take a stand. So here is the stand I have chosen to take:
Failure: What a Blessing!!!
How sad a state of affairs when the only view we can take of failure is the negative; failure as proof that we “can’t” or “shouldn’t have” or that we aren’t “good enough, smart enough or talented enough.” Failure is so much better than that.
“Failure is not an option!” Says who, and what in the world do they know? Of course failure is an option. If success is an option than failure is an option. There are, after all, two sides to everything. For every up there is a down, for every top a bottom, for every left a right, for every in an out… Of course failure is an option. And sometimes we choose it, if not consciously, then unconsciously by inaction. What failure is not, is the end.
If you are alive enough to realize you have failed, you are alive enough to do something about it. Failure is insight! It’s power! It’s wisdom! And so much more. Instead of being afraid of failure, or downright desponded or depressed if you have “failed” to meet a goal or objective, what if you thought: “Wow! What a blessing!?”
J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame said “It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all. In which case, you failed by default.”
It’s reported that Thomas Edison failed over a thousand times in route to the light bulb, and when asked about it he replied: “I haven’t failed, I have simply found 1,000 ways that don’t work!” Now THAT’S a blessing.
Even I have fallen prey to the overwhelming feelings of failure. That feeling that, man, if only I knew then what I know now…! Well, I’ve got some great news for you. You know now what you know now. And the question at hand isn’t why did you fail? It’s how can you succeed from here! Sometimes you have to pull back the troops and regroup; live to fight another day, so to speak. Sometimes, you have to simply barrel forward. Sometime you even have to abandon ship and start over again. It doesn’t matter what shape failure takes, all failure is, is an indication that the methods chosen up to this point are not in alignment to achieve the goals you seek. Instead of beating yourself up for the “mistakes” you made, revel in the new found knowledge of the outcome and then step forward. Take action. Choose.
Failure could be defined as that emotional state where the past is controlling the present. In other words, living in what could have been rather than what is. If that were true, than success is nothing more than that emotional state or presence where the present is in charge, learns from the past and consciously and deliberately chooses the future. After all, it ain’t over til it’s over.
What a blessing to have learned ways that don’t work so that you can choose from a smaller list of possibilities that might work. With less choices you are more likely to hit the jackpot! Remove the either/or, black and white aspects of success and failure and beneath that hard shell you will finds treasures unimagined.
