there is nothing to fear

The whole idea of failure is an error. Failure is the process of succeeding. Success and failure are so close to each other that, in fact, there is no such thing as failure. When a baby is learning to walk and it falls down over and over and over again, those falls are not failure. It's not possible to learn to walk without falling down. That's just the way of it. It is all part of the process of success...failure doesn't really exist.

J.K. Rowling was clinically depressed, contemplating suicide, living on welfare, grieving over her mother's death, divorced and alone with her baby, when she wrote Harry Potter. It was rejected by 12 publishers before being accepted by one who then auctioned it off to another publisher. The truth is that she has always been wildly successful... it just took her awhile to bring herself into alignment with that particular experience in time.

But here's the thing: neither state is a failure, and neither state is a success. There is nothing right or wrong with either state... being the destitute, depressed single mother, or being the billionaire author. All experience is valuable and worthy of love. Judgments as to value are fabrications of the human mind, the dream of being human.

Success already exists for you, and for everyone. So-called failure is the process of bringing yourself into alignment with it. It's like tuning an instrument. The untuned string is not a failed, tuned string. It's not possible to tune a string unless it is first out of tune. But in truth both the untuned string and the tuned string exist simultaneously and are of equal value. Equal value.

Comments

[Simon]

Feeling as un-tuned as now do, this is music to my ears, Marian!

[marian]

Hey stranger, nice to hear your voice...

[Simon]

And always nice to read yours. If you keep saying many of the same things in slightly different ways, eventually some of it will sink in permanently for me!

[Aileen]

Great post, Marian. I was writing something along the same lines this morning. Reminds me of Hamlet: "...for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

[marian]

Hi A., I had a good demonstration of that this weekend in which I made myself truly anxious fretting about a computer problem that turned out to be not a problem at all. There was no problem, just my mind. Is there ever a problem?

[Keith]

Hello Marian,

Sarah sent me the link to your blog. Have been reading through them. WOW. These are great. As I read this one a number of things came to my mind. Reminded of Thomas Edison ..... "On the 10,000th time there was light." There were not 10,000 failures. Just 10,000 learning experiences. If we all were "successful" on the first try just think how boring life would be.

Thanks much.

Keif

[marian]

Keif! Good to hear from you. Thanks for that...