Falling Down- The Importance of Failure

I think as part of growing up we all tend to hear the same sort of advice and platitudes about looking for silver linings and making lemonade when things are bad. Yes, I think in general you should try to find something positive from a bad situation. I think that by doing so, you are forced to try and see beyond gut reactions and emotions and change your perspective. By learning something about yourself and your reactions to certain situations, you can become better equipped to handle the next situation that comes along. Because we all know there is going to be another one coming along, don’t we?

My Favorite Mistakes
Nobody likes to be wrong. Except if it works to our advantage. Even then, I don’t like the idea of being wrong. But, since it is unavoidable all the time, here are some times in my life when I was just plain wrong and the outcomes that seemed to (eventually) work to my advantage.

Burning Down the House
My college roommate my freshman year was a good friend of mine from high school. I would have even gone so far as to say that at one point we were practically best friends. However, our senior year of high school we had a bit of a falling out and I decided that I didn’t want to live with her once we got to college. She panicked. She pleaded, and finally I agreed to live with her. HUGE mistake!!!! We don’t need to go into specifics here, but it was a bad scene (including a small fire). The result of this was that I looked for excuses to not be in our room with her. I spent a lot of time getting to know the other people that lived down the hall. The result? A new roommate and other fantastic life-long friends that I love dearly and still keep in touch with today.

The Path Not Taken- Looking Back Just Strains Your Neck
Ever see the movie Sliding Doors? Do it. Do you ever spend time thinking about how your life would have been different if you had only…..? Of course you do. I think we all do that. I think problems can definitely arise when you spend a little too much time dwelling on what might have been and not enough time dealing with what is in front of you. My path not taken is probably obvious to anyone that has known me longer than…. (Hmm, actually, I don’t know what the timeframe would be.) Ok, so maybe not totally obvious. My path not taken was marriage. In a nutshell: I was close once, but it never happened. For me, having it NOT happen was a life-altering event in itself. No one that knows me thinks the decision was a mistake. No one. Still, I have a tendency to look at it in a stripped down fashion: I wanted something and I didn’t get it, ergo failure. In the bigger picture of my life, it’s not a failure at all. It’s more of a book ending. A final period before starting an entirely new book. The outcome of that decision has been, well….life-altering (ok, so I need a thesaurus). Everything about my life is different. It was also a good lesson in realizing that what you want isn’t always what you need. I think of this every time I see a dessert menu or a shoe store.

Closing a Door and Opening a Window
Yeah, it’s a reference to the Sound of Music. Cheesy, but it was stuck in my head, so what are you gonna do? What I get out of this is that no situation is so bleak that there are no choices left and no reasons for hope. In blacker moments of my life, I have often thought the most destructive emotion we have isn’t hate or anger, but hope. Hope makes you cling to ideas or people or situations that are better left behind you. Now normally, I consider myself to be an optimist and don’t really dwell on such dark things, but hey we all have our bad days. In general, I would say that when faced with a bad situation, I seem to do a couple of things consistently: I freak out (what? You were expecting meditation? Have you MET me?) and then I try to figure out the message. What am I supposed to learn from this? Why is the universe taking the opportunity to bitch-slap me once again? I find that by looking for some sort of meaning, that I am able to see past the emotion. Not a path for everyone, but it works for me. This leads me to my final point…

Signs, Signs, everywhere are Signs
I don’t know what your beliefs are. I don’t even care what they are as long as you aren’t trying to convert me. For me, I have decided to take the path that there are no accidents or coincidences in this world. The people that come into our lives are there for a reason, things like traffic, weather, your health, your co-workers, the IRS, or whatever you think is conspiring against you, is also probably happening for a reason. Everyone has the ability to learn so much everyday from the things around them if they will only learn to pay attention. Now me, I am impatient. No really, I am. It has come to my attention more than once that I need to learn more patience. Well, I’d like to take some time right now and thank the Universe for relentlessly and ruthlessly continuing my education on that. Yes, that’s sarcasm, but there is some sincerity to that as well. I try and remind myself to pay attention to what’s going on around me. If I make a mistake, so be it. Chances are, another opportunity is coming around again for me to get it right. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be more afraid of never learning anything from it.

Final thought: A Joke for you. How do you make God (or insert your preferred deity here) laugh? Plan your life.