Trial & Error

Today I come in peace, I promise.

I actually just want to share a quote I came across and let you nibble on it for a while.

It speaks to a topic most of us don't even want people knowing we think about. I don't understand why we are so secretive about it, but we are. The quote speaks about success, r more accurately, the relationship between success and failure.

The mere act of using the words success and failure in the same sentence makes us cringe because for far too long we've been taught that the opposite of success is failure. We have created a world of extremes and placed success and failure at opposite ends. Effectively saying to people, "you either fail or succeed, you cannot do both".

Is that how it should be though? Should a single moment of failure be permanently engraved as a lifelong "achievement" in your life? Should that moment define you? Can't you do both? Can't you fail, fail, succeed, succeed, fail & succeed, and just keep doing that until you W's outweigh your L's? I can see you shaking your head and nodding as you read. That's good, it means we agree.

Would you indulge me in entertaining a different perspective?

Success and failure are not opposites. They are moments on the journey of life.

I know I promised you that I come in peace, and I intend to keep my promise, but all of this wouldn't make sense if we did not explore this thought:

Maybe, just maybe, the reason you haven't pursued your passion is that there was once a time you tried and failed.

And because of your understanding (or lack thereof) of failure and success, you stopped. But we agreed earlier right? About the relationship between failure and success. Essentially it's a trial and error relationship. You try, you fail, you try again, you fail again, then you try again and succeed. Most of the time it's not in that order, but you get the picture. There's a lot of trying, a lot of failing and some measure of success.

But you ... you tried, failed and stopped.

So I want to ask you a question.

Did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying?

- John C Maxwell

That's today's food for thought ... I can't even phrase this question differently. It is what it is. Did you stop trying because you failed? That can be a valid excuse to stop right? You tried, you failed, it hurt, why try again, right? Why try again? Because permanent failure is when you stop trying.

Don't stop trying because you failed, because you only truly fail when you stop trying.