Dust yourself off....get on out there...

Eleanor Roosevelt once said:

You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

With all due respect to the former First Lady, I think she got it wrong.

"Must"?!  I mean, really....I reject the notion that I "must" do anything other than take care of my kids.  And brush my teeth...that seems important.  And it's probably a good idea to eat once in awhile.

But I digress...anyway, I think she really should've said this:

You CAN do the thing which you think you cannot do.

Yep, I can.  Watch me.

On a different note....I was talking with my friend, Julie, tonight and she reminded me of a truly important principle: "I can't move on if I don't learn from the past."  

Wow.  What a thought!  It got me to thinking back to a topic once explored in class...how do we define failure? 

A year ago, I read a book for my grad program entitled The Music of Failure, by a local author named Bill Holm.  Admittedly, the title was off-putting for a woman fresh into her first steps as a graduate student and unwilling to concede any failures at all.  And besides, I had spent most of the last two years wallowing through some form of failure or another, and I really wasn’t anxious to read about someone else’s.

 

Much to my surprise, I found it to be beautiful; these artfully crafted essays describing his experiences and observations of life were easy to enjoy.  As I delved into the pages, reading short essay after short essay about people in Mr Holm's life, I found myself reworking my definition of failure.  What if failure wasn't a discordant tone, but rather a flowing harmony?

Failure can come in many forms, but much of failure is up to each of us to determine.  Choosing the right frame to view our successes and shortcomings is key in finding the inspiration to continue.  Framing is not just about applying the right frame of mind to the task, but also in applying it to performance evaluation.  Perfection is not possible; success under that frame of mind will surely never come.  But completion of a task is success; achievement of certain outcomes is a success; and allowing oneself room for growth and the ability to try again is success.

Once, in a conversation with my chaplain, he told me that “failure is defined as not getting up one more time than you are knocked down.”  Amen, old man.  I tucked that gem away in my heart, to be retrieved later when I needed it over and over again.

So, on we will go, marching through the peaks and valleys of dating, carrying our failures with us like a background chorus, and remembering the sweet harmonies that overlay the chorus when the divine meets Earth and sparks fly.  That optimism, paired with the defiance of not staying down, is the mark of an exceptional person.  And each of us is capable of exceptional.