“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” ~ Winston Churchill

Mmmm. Delicious failure.

There is nothing like going for something that everyone said you couldn’t or shouldn’t go for. You go after it, then proceed to fail and fall flat on your face right in front of them, only to then again get up and defiantly continuing forward—with a limp.

This is an adrenaline rush.

We run, run, run down the corridor of our dreams only to never see the end. We wheeze and sputter with sweat dripping, yet we still pursue. Here in this dank reality, failure is standing beside us as an unconditional guarantee, a counterintuitive cheerleader hissing encouragement from the underworld.

What would we be without the opportunities to look deeper, to be inspired by the error of humanity, to have a gauge to show us how far we have come? We would be complacent, celestial gods—bored with each other, having too much sex, and hurling lightning bolts toward a world we have made commonplace?

Blessed Failure, hallowed be thy name.

Save us from our own perfection.

Let us never actualize, but only expand.

Why do we always try to measure up and, even worse, single out those who don’t make the grade? What have we created around us within calculating self-hatred and ridicule passed down through generations of fearful children who grew up to raise fearful children? Who’s only wish was to see their inner world become an outer reality?

That’s what we all want—a world to call our own.

This question has yet to be answered because, deep down, we don’t want to know that we are responsible for all the decisions we make, no take-backsies. That one simple fact makes our failings look overwhelming and monstrous.

We, in paralysis of ruining our one chance at getting it right, are the reason why success is defined by terms that do not align with our deepest desires. We want others to be proud of who we are. We have a deep desire to belong somewhere. We want to know that we are good. It is up to us to discover personal, ever unfolding truth by diverging from the path laid out for us by someone else and start thinking for ourselves no matter what.

Our failures are treasures of delight hidden in our darkness. We have the right to celebrate them as much as we celebrate the moments that come with ease. The relief after life’s exams tastes the same whether we know the outcome or not but, as humans addicted to supremacy, we think that the end result is a finality that we can control.

Ultimately I believe this illusion is meant to pacify our inherent sour grapes about being unable to control death, but I digress…

We cannot control our short comings, we can only do our best. We cannot control other’s shortcomings either. When we realize that, the stigma around the f-bomb disappears into the Mist of Asinine Illusions. It is at this point when things around us start to actually happen as we intend.

“On this path, effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort towards spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear.” ~ Bhagavad Gita (2:40) 

What is our greatest fear? It has yet to be discovered. We have universal fears, but the greatest lies within that of our own exclusive contract with life. The greatest teachers of life are those same elements that we fear the most whether they show up as situations, people, places, or ideas.

They are hidden in the shadows of our psyche, and are the grounding force for our right to spiritual expansiveness.

They are the catalysts that tell us we are alive, we are here in what seems like an instant.

When we are gone it will be all that we have to be remembered by. Our greatest fears are the markers of our character.

Failure is the pathway to understanding all of the complexities of life. It is a contained explosion within the creative process that allows us to visage a pristine dream with our spiritual nature, while forging with the eroding shoreline of time. In a hot inter-temporal relationship, failure is born from the apex of the finite in intimate union with the infinite. There is nothing like it and only we humans can do it (that we know of so far). What boggles my mind is that every failure is unique like a fingerprint.

The refining process is dependent on the relationship you have with failing. When the refining process becomes the creative central focus of your actions as opposed to the failure that it spawned from, you will feel like you did when you were a kid. You could always fly. You were right about all the dreams you crafted while others said they were silly. You truly did know yourself.

Our childhoods are the time when we map out and create a blueprint with boundless imagination.

You can’t get back there unless you start moving your ass on over to that big scary goal of yours, looking up at its gargantuan proportions, deciding a plan of action, and hacking away at it until you can meet it eye to eye.

What else is there to do?

One day you will take a step into the fresh morning air of your life surrounded by the beauty you created. It will sneak up on you, because you were in the experience of creating for its entirety, undisturbed.

When the moment arrives for you to step back and ingest the masterpiece of your life, you will celebrate each and every moment, diving deeper into the infinite.

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Apprentice Editor: Jessica Sandhu/Editor: Rachel Nussbaum

Photo: Flickr