Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly. ~John F. Kennedy
I like the challenge in the above quote but I realize that it doesn’t fit with what we grow up believing about failure…
I wonder how life would be different if we embraced failure as a part of living.
I wonder how I would be different if I was as willing to talk about my failures as I am to share what I am confident about…
I am going to begin to name ways that I might achieve more greatly by failing more miserably…
The one instance that comes to mind is the whole development of my cardiovascular system. I must be willing to fail in order to succeed. I am struck by how often I feel like I am failing and yet every time I get a bit further before I fail. In that I am succeeding….it is a crazy concept and I am guessing there are other instances in my life to apply the challenge by John F Kennedy….
Where do you need to risk failing in order to embrace and celebrate great success?
”In life you can never be too kind or too fair; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load. When you go through your day expressing kindness and courtesy to all you meet, you leave behind a feeling of warmth and good cheer, and you help alleviate the burdens everyone is struggling with.”~Brian Tracy
I read this today and found it quite convicting….
The first thing that struck me was the extreme word choice….you can NEVER….EVERYONE is carrying….ALL you meet….often those are words I tend to take issue with but in this context, they seemed to be words that were more of an invitation to consider the magnitude…
The second thing that struck me was how this quote offers me an invitation to act. Never be too KIND or too FAIR…those are words that are within my realm of influence if I CHOOSE to act on them. Today I was challenged (invited) to look at what acts of kindness i could put into action….
The last thing that struck me is that if I believe the premise of which this thought is based, then I have an OPPORTUNITY in every exchange I have, to impact the people with whom I interact each and every day. The impact is that if I choose to express kindness and courtesy, I WILL leave behind a feeling of warmth and good cheer, and you help alleviate the burdens everyone is struggling with.
So I decided to give this a try and stepped out of my place in the self check out at Meijers and assist the elderly man ahead of me by bagging his groceries while he scanned them. He was skeptical and appreciative. And in the end of our 10 minute exchange, he made eye contact with me, his eye’s lit up and he said a big THANK YOU and gave me a wonderful toothless grin.
It was a small thing and honestly required nothing of me.
It was fun to offer this gentleman something motivated by my desire to be kind and courteous….
It was a delightful moment when he acknowledged my offering and for a brief moment, in the giving and the receiving, we connected as total strangers in Meijers. I will likely never see him again, but I believe we were both blessed….
What a different world this would be if we might all choose to live out this call to compassion and share in the carrying of the loads we bear!
