Success can be
illy devious; it alludes us into extended leisures; upon actualizing our goal
(promotion, graduation, marriage, etc...) we tend to over celebrate;
consequently our drive slows down.
As the cliché
famously says: Success is not a destination,
it is journey.
But definitely
there are destinations in that journey. In our path we often stumble upon them.
We disguise them differently: experiences, learnings, and upward curves... I
think we avoid labeling them for what they truly are: Failure. We grow up
ashamed of it; toss it to the abyss of memory. Alas, squandering all its
fruitful lessons. Failure empowers us, unveils unseen horizons, and keeps us
alert. Individuals who ascend from failures' ashes recognize
the existence of various unfamiliar paths of success; this in
itself cleans the judgmental visor staining our outlook. Failure
gifts us with compassion and understanding, thus reuniting
ourselves with our hardened humanity.
In her inspiring
speech, author JK Rowling declared that ‘…some failure in life is
inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you
live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which
case, you fail by default.'
Drawing on this,
it’s critical to recognize that we’re not discussing fake success, which I
define as laboring unsatisfactorily to gain acceptance of others (parents,
managers, peers...), but rather the unreasonable success which manifests our
most inner dream, by conquering the demon that awakens us late at nights, that is if we slept at all.
Conquering that
demon leads us to virgin paths; others might have embarked upon parallel paths,
but never ours. It's designed for us individually, for we’re the creators of
its borders and boundaries.
Poet John Keats
dubbed this notion as Negative Capability. He defines it as: 'the willingness
to embrace uncertainty, live with mystery, and make peace with ambiguity.'
Allow me to assert the notion further and borrow a page from the psychology literature known as Desirable
Difficulty; which states that 'introducing certain difficulties into a process
can greatly improve long-term retention of the process material.' Life imposes
difficulties upon us without permissions; it's wiser if we prepped ourselves to
deal with them. Such practice enables us to extract advantages from
disadvantages; we become invincible. Indeed, Economic states that the greater
the risk, the greater reward.
Now, when I say Embrace failure, I don't mean to have it inferred that rashness and sloppiness should be celebrated. Rather, it’s a
invitation to tackling the unfamiliar, and acknowledging the risky
destinations on unknown paths, face them with irrevocable grit and unspoiled
determination. This undoubtedly bestows happiness upon us; by doing so, our
happiness will contagiously shine and allow those around us to bath in our
light.
