The Funkiness of Failure

(Truth: I wrote this initially in January so I’m already failing at writing about failure this year – ha! More truthfully, I’m finding that failure is not only funky, but fundamental in life and I’m having fun decomposing fails and recomposing new thoughts so stay tuned!)

Failure sucks, to put it mildly. To feel like a failure, even worse. In fact, if you’re like most of us, you’ll do anything to avoid getting anywhere close to the ‘state’ where you might fail.

I’m currently in the midst of my first MAJOR fail of the year (yay for the first quarter of 2024!! LOL) and so ready to think about failure in a NEW way.

Sometimes wallowing in failure is actually kind of fun. Really – try it, but go easy on the junk food. Ha!

Me, I fail way too often. I shouldn’t be proud of it – I make decisions I know up front may not turn out well, but I figure, hey – why not? What’s the worst that can happen. Luckily for me, other than bruising my ego and making me feel bad for a while, I’ve survived emotionally and physically. Lucky I know. I bet you can survive too!

And you can tell I’m fascinated with failure if you look at some of failure drawings.

There are failures of all sizes – probably why I (laughed) at the idea of shopping without having anything to wear….

(I wish this was my only failure to ‘cry’ about…)

BEST postcard ever – buying this postcard was not a failure – ha!

But here’s one thing I’ve learned: Failure is simply the result of not having the right resources (this probably doesn’t apply to my shopping misadventures…). Take Mother Nature:

Yup, there’s that poor little plant that no matter what you do, doesn’t grow.

Time to look at what it needs that it doesn’t have.

In Mother Nature’s world, things need ‘the basics’ to survive (and thrive): water, air, and healthy soil to grow healthy food.

Hey, our Human Nature needs the same stuff….

But then there’s the stuff that was doing just dandy (think spring and summer) and then – BAM – autumn hits and everything seems to fail/fall apart.

All that dead stuff…

WHY? Simply lack of resources to survive.

Let’s face it, our Human Nature isn’t that different than Mother Nature – whether we don’t grow or part of us dies because we don’t have the right resources to keep (that part of us) vibrant and alive.

Have a dream?

Have a dream that’s ‘died’ (for any reason)?

Have people around you blow it off without understanding? (that’s a different issue!)

Take a leaf from Mother Nature’s book and think about recycling that failure – reusing what was learned and rebuilding it into new growth.

Mother Nature literally decomposes dead failure into nutrients like Lego blocks that can be rebuilt into new growth.

Human Nature’s decomposing is more metaphorical AND just as nutrient rich.

Collect baskets of metaphorical decomposed riches from your failure. Plant them into your next risk.

I’ll keep you posted on my current failure, my decomposed nutrient rich learnings, and what and how I’ll plant in this coming season.

Here’s to nurturing your new growth this season and this year!

Remember failure is not an END – as I like to say:

EVEN DEAD ENDS CAN BE BACKED OUT OF!