No, not that one. The other one. The one that upsets us a whole lot more. The one that really brings us to our knees. Uh huh. You've got it - failure. Nothing strikes fear into our heart quite like it. No one likes to fail and most of us will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid it.
Winning is good. Clearly. Hurrah! But, we rarely win all the time. Through lack of application or resources. Bad luck. Someone else being . . . shhhhh . . . better than us. Not working hard enough. Circumstances beyond our control. Someone else not playing fair. It stands to reason that sometimes we are going to fail during this long and rich journey of life, so maybe we should get a little better at it?
Fear of failure can loom so large that we stop playing the game all together, which is actually the ultimate tragedy. Isn't that the greatest failure of them all? To be so fearful of failing that we make our life smaller, live in ever-decreasing circles to keep ourselves safe and avoid it?
Benjamin Franklin said there was nothing certain in this world save death or taxes. I think we can add failure to that list. Applying an emotional tourniquet to our life in order to prevent future failure is not a winning strategy, it's a strategy of lessening ourselves. Of spiritual and emotional cowardice.
Failure is one of the greatest growth experiences there is. It can be an experience gifted to help us expand our world view. It's an opportunity to pause, to ask: What can I learn here? Why might this have happened in my life, now? What do I not want to repeat here?
