I’ll tell you why I consider failure ‘holy.’ Believe me, it
hurts like hell. “Rejected” and “dejected” come from the same root: something
thrown back at us, something that makes us lie down, give up. I had the wind taken out
of me for two days. “Failure” casts its
pall on your whole life, making you feel smaller than you when you see yourself
in the black mirror of its dark light. We feel we alone suffer so while the
rest of the world and the people in it are joyously ‘successful,’ which, of
course, is not true in the least. Life puts such demands and pressures on those
of us who are ambitious in any sphere – and most of us are: if it’s not in this
or that field, we are ambitious enough to want peace and contentment.
At the very least, failure, if we don’t let it grind us down –
and we mustn’t! Mustn’t! – can strengthen us to bear more, to accept our destinies, and to carry on. For carrying on is what it's all about.
so like they say, keep on trucking . . .
I've learned more from my failures then my successes: they are the low and high on a continuum. The more one detaches from the outcome the more peace of mind (and less tsuris!) there is.....that's what we are here, in part to learn.
ReplyDeleteToo much failure and you can become broken unless you face what Life is trying to teach you. Too much success and your complacent ego can take over thinking you're special...a big trap! Plenty of "famous" biographies to demonstrate possible outcomes (Marilyn M, Virginia Wolf, Emily Dickenson, Michael Jackson, Pablo Cassals, Nelson Mandela, etc. )etc
Both failure and success are needed to grow and live the examined Life.