My wise friend recently confessed, “The older I get, the more I realize I don’t know very much.” If you have done much living it should be no secret to you that the path to human growth is not a flat and straight road. It is a long, winding road - full of peaks and valleys, and often, just as you think you are about to reach the summit, down, down, down you slide – just like a child’s game of shoots and ladders. Oh sure you can choose to take the safe path, to ride the donkey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but in doing so you rob yourself of the “I did it moment.” You reap what you sow – those words are gospel.
Failure is such a powerful complexity of life. The reality is that an infallible human does not exist, yet just the mere possibility of failure can be paralyzing. I am much more impressed by someone who has failed then by someone who has never tried. The really hard part is to own your failures and learn from them. Resist the urge to punish yourself. It takes great strength and character to do so. As painful as it might feel today, I am convinced that every failure’s silver lining is the opportunity for growth - opportunities that should not be wasted.
Failure is such a powerful complexity of life. The reality is that an infallible human does not exist, yet just the mere possibility of failure can be paralyzing. I am much more impressed by someone who has failed then by someone who has never tried. The really hard part is to own your failures and learn from them. Resist the urge to punish yourself. It takes great strength and character to do so. As painful as it might feel today, I am convinced that every failure’s silver lining is the opportunity for growth - opportunities that should not be wasted.
