PROMPT: Failure

Daily writing prompt
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

If one fails and one tries again, one will make course corrections. Keep repeating that cycle, and one is bound to home in on success.

Psychologically, I think juggling is a fantastic skill to practice because one must fail a million times and keep going. Furthermore, one must learn to choose failure over a spastic success (and condition that behavior in on the fly.) By this I mean, one must learn to let the ball drop rather than lunging to make a frantic catch, because if you are always making wild reaches, you’ll never achieve a smooth, natural rhythm. In other words, a catch that keeps the ball in the air for one or two more throws is not truly a success if it trains a wobbly, unsustainable movement pattern. More generally, one must redefine what constitutes success or failure at a fundamental level.

PROMPT: Grow

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

The ones that involved repeated non-catastrophic failures (e.g. martial arts practice.)

Also, the ones that confronted fears (e.g. open sea swimming.)

PROMPT: Can’t Fail

Daily writing prompt
What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

Anything for which one is guaranteed not to fail sounds boring and not worth doing. [Not to mention, fictitious.]

TODAY’S RANDOM THOUGHT: How Sad for You

success-failA man once said to me, with evident pride, that he’d never failed a test of any kind in his life.

I guess he was expecting admiration, and must have been disappointed when I blurted, “how sad for you.”

But here is a person who has never stepped outside his comfort zone, who has no idea what he is capable of, and–moreover–he’s pleased as punch with that state of affairs.