Free to fail

Most  of us cringe at the word.  We do everything we possibly can to avoid failure.  It has been ingrained in our cores that losses and incomplete attempts are fails.  It effects us negatively and we feel somehow less than others whom we deem to have succeeded. 

In September, I began working at a local non-profit.  Last week, I was fired.  I felt my spirit sink as I sat with  my supervisor.  She expected me to say something, but what could I say?  The decision had been made and I knew the job was not where I really wanted to be.  Still, I felt this deep sense of loss and familiar feeling of failure creep into me.

As I drove home, I thought about my time there.  I had helped change some things.  I had met some really great people.   I had confronted some of my demons and I had gotten some of my debts under control.  Instead of crawling into bed and laying there for a week or more like I did last time I was let go from a job, I cried.  I came home and wrote what I called my "Battle Plan;" a series of steps I would do to help me get my head straight and working towards a happier, healthier, more effective me.

I've seen a meme on the web, several times, that turned the word "FAIL" into an empowering acronym.  First Attempt In Learning.  While it may not be your first attempt in learning, it is a way to look at the situation that strips the guilt and sense of being displeased from our minds and allows us to look at it like a practice run. 

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.  But he didn't do it on his first try.  He tried many times and was not successful.  Instead of being goal orientated and focusing on what he had NOT done, he was focused on the journey and said, "I haven't failed.  I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

How many of us can say we have tried anything 10,000 times?  I can't.  I know I mess up all the time and there are times I do not meet the goals I set for myself.  Most of  my life has been quitting before I get started because I was afraid to fail.  It may have been passable or acceptable but it was not up to the standards I set for myself or I felt others had put forth.  This time, I am not calling this a failure.  It is a loss. Something I am grieving over.   But it is not the end of the process.

Perhaps it's a U-turn; perhaps a dead end.  Maybe it is simply a byway, a lesser traveled path.  Whatever it is, it is not the end.  I will fail many times and I will get distracted or lost along the way but I will not fall into the pattern of believing I am a failure.  Life rarely works out according to our plans.  We are free to fail.  Free to try.  Free to start over as many times as it takes.  Who knows?  Maybe your 10,000th attempt will be the one that brings your own special light to the world.