Tag Archives: failure

F for Effort

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“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”  ―Thomas Edison

It’s more comfortable to gather your chips and walk away from the table than to risk everything, especially when everything is at stake.

But those are the moments that test our resolve and willingness to step to the precipice of ruination, armed only with a gut instinct to stay in the box, waiting for that one last swing. 

Maybe we make contact. Maybe we don’t. But both results carve two very distinct paths. How we navigate the walk is more important than the shape of the route that was forced upon us.

It’s easy to get lost in the twists and turns and missteps and regrets and hindsight and remorse and blunders and miscalculations. But the gate is closed behind us, so the only option is to move forward.

That might mean celebrating success or revisiting the drawing board. But there is no time or room for stagnation, and the clock isn’t waiting for us to reach a definitive conclusion before our feet get going.

Perspective is something much more easily seen in the rearview mirror, so it’s not always simple to plot a plan in the present moment. But the only way to avoid failure is to continue rolling the dice and hoping for favorable combinations. 

What we do to manage the reality of the results after all the bets have been placed says more about our character and resolve than any ephemeral “luck” doled out by the universe.    

Each day is an opportunity for improvement, regardless of the possible obstacles. Some steps might need to be taken more gently than others, but the pivotal moment comes when you decide to lift that heel and begin.

Adolescence Interrupted

The Compounding Effects of Failure

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Brick by brick, inch by inch, and year by year…the weight of missteps buried beneath a wall of wrong turns becomes unsustainable and impossible to maintain. Cracks begin to crumble under the stress of compounded, mislaid materials. Weeds grow in the moisture pits of poorly sealed perpends. Stained stretchers and broken beds tell the tale of what transpires when marks are missed and goals are gone.

But the best bricklayers know that no wall is impossible to correct. Viewed from even a slightly different perspective, the crooked can straighten and the slanted can slide back to center. No mortar is impermeable with enough gusto behind the grip. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and the tools needed for the task are hanging at the hip, armed and ready.

Defeat is found in the repetition of bad decisions written on the lines of poor planning. Every blueprint needs an editor and a second set of eyes. Misjudgments often come from a place of sincerity and hope. It’s not blame-worthy to feel your feet find an uneven edge of the sidewalk. It’s simply a matter of summoning the confidence to pretend you intentionally tripped.

If your wall is disproportionately weighted with a seemingly static past, muster the courage to start again, brick by brick, level by level…until you can be proud of the clean lines and fresh overlay you’ve created.

Walls should be built for safety, not suffocation.

Adolescence Interrupted

Permission to Fail

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Be patient. Be kind. Fall down. Get up again. Forgive yourself.

As we all blindly sprint toward some imaginary, concocted finish line, we hold onto the hope that a solid grip on the brass ring will somehow bring a permanent sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

But even the most clever moves on the chessboard are often met with an equal or greater riposte.

A difficult lesson to learn is that a lack of adversity is not necessarily a good thing. Getting knocked to the ground can hurt the body (along with the ego), but the strength it takes to stand and fight another day is worth the bruised knees and battered self-esteem.

We are not perfect. But we are perfectionists stuck in the shoes of fallible creatures. Making peace with that incongruity is the first step toward shedding the skin of self-criticism and personal disparagement.

This is exponentially easier said than done. Beating ourselves up over every misstep and mistake we make is a national pastime.  Our society reserves praise only for the best of the best, and shuns second place losers like a colony of lepers holding silver medals, plastering on fake smiles of faux enthusiasm for disinterested press lines.

But without defeat, there is no success. If we don’t give ourselves permission to fail, we never learn. If we never learn, we never grow.

Reframe your personal narrative. Relish the wins, but embrace the losses with a modified focus on what can be gained from coming up short or missing the mark.

Failure might finally have a different feel when it’s wearing fuzzy slippers instead of spiked heels.

Adolescence Interrupted