Failure Teaches March 16th 2023 – Come Home Journal #11
Sure it teaches, but it can be painful! You might remember Keats Negative Capability – the work to sit with not knowing. I need a lot more training it seems!
Failure is the discomfort of planning tipping over, the dismay of the roadmap singeing while you watch. Heartbreaking really.
But what do they say? It’s how you respond?
I recently discover I’m a catastrophist. A little singeing is good, clears the undergrowth and clarifies the path. But not if you build a bonfire. Which I did. After tears, foot stamping and going to bed early to not sleep.
Artists create the new every day, but we sometimes look for rulebooks. There aren’t any. We learn more from mistakes than good fortune.
And now my dentist tells me I must floss after every meal. She shows me how. Apparently I’ve never done it right! This failure is costly, and ongoing. I must remember to apologise to the kids.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the person who points out how the strong person stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends themself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if they fail, at least fails while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt speech “Citizenship in a Republic” ** April 23 1910, Paris France **Altered for inclusion.
Speak softly to yourself – give yourself a compliment everyday – if you can’t, then, ask what someone who loves you would say to you today? They would never be as hard on you as you are on yourself. Myself.
Today’s mantra, say it out loud: “I am strong. I am loved. No one died.”
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