Failure is not an option?

 How many times have you heard that phrase: "Failure is not an option."?

Of course, on its face that phrase is ridiculous. Failure is always an option, whether due to overwhelming force against your act, or you refusing to try because of the fear of failure. Frequently, that fear is the self fulfilling outcome, not failure from lack of trying.

This is a sensitive subject for me. We know that many are their own worst critics, and many others should be. No one, I think is harsher on themselves than I am to me. It is likely that it is omnipresent in my writing, and in the podcasts. That I am writing, is one way for me to deal with that, as I can wordsmith to my heart's content. But ultimately, I have to publish, and so I only take that so far.

President Thomas S. Monson, at the time 1st Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, spoke of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. No, I am not going down the religion hole, but President Monson's point is especially valid for the subject at hand.

He related the part where Alice arrives at a crossroads, with two paths going in opposite directions. She doesn't know which to take, and when the Cheshire cat appears, she asks him. He tells her that it depends on where you want to go. "If you don't know where you want to go, it doesn't really matter which path you take!". How true is that when we are faced with really any decision in our lives.

If we are meandering through life, without purpose or without goals, then it doesn't matter what choices we make, or worse, don't make. "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice" is the refrain from Getty Lee and Rush. In reality, that is the worst choice, letting others decide for you. Last week, I wrote on freedom. Many died so that we could have the freedom to be what we want, and by choosing to not choose, we dishonor those individuals.

The cloud of fear hangs over many. Our national landscape is scattered with fear, with those who have been taught that they cannot succeed. None of us start on an even playing field with anyone else. We are all unique individuals, with different talents and abilities. Life does not line us up on one starting line. For some a broken household is an obstacle. IT IS NOT AN IMPENETRABLE BARRIER! The same could be said for those who start life, or encounter later on various impediments, whether they be physical, mental, or emotional. 

Dr. Ben Carson grew up in the projects of Detroit, in a single parent household. His mother was essentially illiterate. John D. Rockefeller was not a wealthy man when he began Standard Oil, and yet built a company so large that the government broke it up. While not having been born with disabilities, can anyone argue about the intellect, and contribution to society by Dr. Stephen Hawking? The question should never be about the disparities of life. It is always about what you did with what you had. Even in the parable of the talents we see this principle in action

A great lord was going on a journey, and so he gave talents to his servants. To one was given five talents, to another two, and to the third, one. The one who received five doubled the investment for his Lord. The second, who received two, also doubled the return. Both received praise and reward from their Master. Can any of us doubt that the last, who received but one talent, would have been rewarded in the same manner, had he doubled that investment? He would have received the same praise as the others. But he didn't. And why didn't he? He feared what would happen if he failed. (Matthew 24:14-30 KJV)

What defines us is our reaction to circumstances that present themselves to us. Do we wallow in self pity or victimhood? Or do we take the lemons of life, and make lemonade? If we screw up, which all of us will, or have, or both, what do we do? 

Some call it failing forward. When we learn from our mistakes, or when we learn what doesn't work, so long as we actually LEARNED that lesson, we are a better person for having gone through the experience.

That, my friends, is what life is about. Overcoming obstacles, including one of the largest, that being fear of failure.