Failures: Past, present, and future? I fail all the time. Up, down, sideways. Also, I don’t believe in failure.
That is click-baity though because of course I do. I’m a present day human. I’ve been trained my whole life to believe I fail at every turn. As a female, I fail just waking up as a shape. That is, of course, garbage, but here we are.
⚽🐍: Okay, so here we are. A world of moving goalposts, and impossible ideas of “perfect”. But next comes the choice. The choice to suck the fear of failure right out of it, like a toxic snake bite, and spit it away.*
(*My analogies are getting grosser, and also I think you are definitely not supposed to do this. “Cutting and sucking the wound only serves to increase the risk of infection.” Thank you for coming to my snake bite PSA.)
🥔📺: I believe I failed only when I don’t try again. If something didn’t “turn out” immediately, and I sat down to wallow in TV and potato chips. Now everyone needs recoup time when the seed doesn’t grow, the sides aren’t square, or the code is borked. Potato chips are tasty, and sometimes there’s an inspiring tutorial on YouTube. But fall down 7 times, get up 8.
A bruised ego can heal, and come back tougher. Letting your ego get bruised can be like training for a fight — kicking a coconut tree to toughen up your shin, a la Van Damme.**
(**OKAY THIS IS EVEN WORSE THAN THE SNAKE BITE THING. Don’t kick coconut trees kids.)
🍐: Yesterday I tried making pear jam. It didn’t set cuz there wasn’t enough sugar. Fail… But now delicious goop for my oatmeal.
👩💻: I coded a layout that didn’t resize correctly on every device. Fail? No, just needed some tweaks. Now I know more.
🎁: I’m trying a new way of long-term potato and pear storage. Will it work? Shrug! Today might be the first day of a long slow fail. I hope not. But I won’t regret the fail if it comes. I’ll regret not trying.
Maybe I’ll end up with a box of sprouty spuds, and a mushy mess of pears. But maybe, maybe I’ll be biting into a luscious pear in the dead of winter, savouring the taste of trying.
Here’s to failing and trying again, to correct handling of snake bites and respect for coconut trees.
Have a great week folks.❤️
~Kate