Learning Curve

I was reading tonight, keeping my news years resolution, and came across a few lines about failure.  Interestingly enough, my wife was reading something similar at the same time.  Which of course got me thinking about failure and how it has affected me.

Now I have had some pretty epic failures in my life and I don't think I'm alone.  If  you ever meet anyone who says they've never failed, don't trust them.  They are either lying or they have an ego that won't let them admit to it.  I guess someone who hasn't done very much in life could say that they have never failed.  Either way, they probably aren't someone you want to ask for life advice from.

I did a quick mental check on my failures in life.  I didn't dwell on them, but I asked myself what the common theme was.  Was it something in my personality?  Did a serious fault in who I think I am cause them?  I came to the conclusion that it was just be being young and dumb, or just dumb, most of the time.  I took a lot of chances when I was younger and got my butt kicked by Karma a time or two.

Looking back on it I finally figured out something very important.  I am my mistakes.  No, I don't mean that I am a mistake and I keep making mistakes. 

I am the culmination of all the lessons I learned from making mistakes.  The mistakes turned into life long lessons.  Lessons I continuously return to, and evaluate, as I make decisions about my life now. 

I've been successful in the past, and I think I'm successful now.  But success never taught me truths in life like failure has.  Life is easy when your successful, things just seem to flow.  I never really looked introspectively at myself when I was being successful though.  It was enjoyable to just be in the moment.

On the other hand, failure was hard.  Failure made me look at myself and be really, really honest about who I was.  What I believed in.  How I perceived myself.  Failure made me question why I did, or didn't do, things that could have changed my outcome.  Failure was, and is, a great teacher.  It is a hard and unforgiving way to accumulate wisdom.

It takes a while to get past the pain, and shame, of a really good screw up.  I don't really like having my flaws exposed.  I don't like having to call myself out on my own bullshit.  But I've come to realize that this is the way you grow.  This is the way you get better. 

There is no greater critic than yourself and no greater teacher than experience.  Life is only going to last so long, you might as well learn from it.