Failure: The Second Best Outcome

Well.

My thirty-day writing challenge, it's safe to say, was a failure.

No, let's be more clear: I failed to complete the thirty-day writing challenge I set for myself.

Better. More direct. More precise. A subject and verb. I failed. No evasion, no ambiguity.

Why really doesn't matter. Life got in the way, I got busy, I got tired. It happens. Part of success, I think, is recognizing that it happens and moving on instead of beating myself up about it.

Because after all, if I fail--it's because I did something. Did something, put myself out there, and fell flat. Which beats the stuffing out of doing nothing, which is exactly what I've been doing the last two months. What I've been doing most of my life, actually.

It's the second best outcome I could hope for. The first, obviously, is success. Take on a challenge and complete it. Stand tall knowing I did what I set out to do.

The second best is to take on a challenge and fail, and know that even though I didn't complete it, I'm ahead of where I was.

The worst outcome--last place in any endeavor--is to sit on the sidelines thinking wow, that looks hard. I'm glad I'm not out there.

Because, really, what do we accomplish if we never take a risk, never push ourselves to do the one thing we can do that no one else can?

I'll still answer the rest of the Trust30 prompts, in time. Not out of some stubborn ideal of finishing what I started; just because they're fun, and they get me writing and make me think. Sometimes about things I'd rather not think about. Which is a good thing.

I'm also going to start doing some history here again. I think next we'll explore the changes in warfare that led from armored knights on horseback to rifle-armed militia. From Knights to Minutemen is a concept I've done with my kids; I'll adapt it and share it here. That will give us something to talk about.

Let's move forward together!
HN