Whew! It has been a couple months since I have posted, and boy have I been busy! I’m back to writing and creatine, and I look forward to sharing with everyone the work I have been doing over the Summer. This piece was an opportunity to utilize a gel print I created to test inks. I then realized there was enough space available to create something real, so here it is! The random marks were tests and I think they add interest and value to the piece. Not all the things I tested were successful, so I appreciate what Nelson Mandela had to say about failure:
Do not judge me by successes,
– Nelson Mandela 2013
judge me by how many times I fell down
and got back up again.
We all have countless plans for our Summer days, our weekends, our careers and of course for every element of our lives. We dream, we think, we investigate and then we plan. And if your life is like mine, not all of your plans come to fruition or even get attempted. Something always gets in the way, goes wrong, gets forgotten, or that unexpected adventure or opportunity takes precedence and what we planned goes by the way side. Sometimes we see those uncompleted plans as failures. And indeed that may be true. I am glad that Mandela reminds us that we should not judge ourselves by our failures. We need to have the courage and self esteem to judge ourselves by the times we have gotten back up from failure.
Failure is our best learning instrument. It helps us learn what we know or don’t know, the elements we can improve AND gives us an opportunity to reflect and get better. If we never fail we never have the chance to dare and learn then dare again. I had someone tell me to never let anyone know when you fail because failure is a sign of weakness. I gasped and told them I see failure as exactly the opposite. Failure is our only chance to be strong, to stand tall and own what we did, then make sure it never happens again. I see weakness as an inability to admit when we were wrong.
As we venture into these last weeks of Summer, when have you dared to try which gives you the opportunity to fail? Failure is a gift to ourselves, the gift that builds courage, self respect AND allows us to grow into a better version of ourselves. So give it a go – whatever ‘IT’ is in your world – and see how much your failures bring you closer to success and personal satisfaction. Never fear failing…it is those who stay down that truly fail.
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