Stare at failure in the eye...it'll stare back
Hold your gaze but don't drop your shoulders...one slip and you're in trouble
Keep staring, don't drop your guard... Failure has a free schedule and fights you from the head down
Now turn around. Walk the other way...the longer you stare, the longer you'll be on the same level as failure
When I first saw this poem hanging on a classroom wall, it sprang an array of emotions from within. My first response was... wow, this is quite an amazing piece of poetry; who wrote it? Can I meet them and get an understanding of the inspiration for them writing this poem. Unfortunately, that meeting never came around but the consensus everyone I talked about it with was this...thinking about failure and feeling self pity about it is accepting defeat. To become a stronger person, we have to move past failure.
Failure is present in life for a reason. It's a learning curve. Some failures are small and some are big. Never let it hold you back from retrying something you didn't achieve the first time. How can we ever know what we are truly capable of achieving if we do not move past failure. Children are the greatest source of inspiration with sweeping failure aside. You never see a young child who's been given a tricycle or bicycle accept failure if they can't ride it the first time. No. Until it's a smooth ride, they're persistently ruthless in their pursuit of overcoming failure because that goal of doing it right spurs them on. Be inspired by your failures and let that desire to achieve your goal spur you on instead of being bogged in a cloud of doubt.
There are a lot of girls who share stories with me about guys who have rejected them. A knight in shining armour will never rescue them from the tower of lonliness. I feel sorry when they think like this because it is the very thing that poet is talking about. Stuck in a staring contest with failure, they're in such an innate state and cannot think outside their own disappointments. Never let somebody who's going through this convince you it's true. Instead smile and say... "You know this isn't true; you're not unlovable. It's time you moved past this slip up. The great thing you know now is that you're one person closer to finding that perfect match." If you fail a year at university or don't get an acceptance letter into the Premier sports team, don't be discouraged by it, use it as a motvating factor to help you achieve success. Tell yourself "this isn't going to happen again" and believe it. Break through the ice. It will dissolve into water if you tell it to because you are the captain of your ship and you have two choices. To be guided by the slow gentle breeze of failure, or the strong gusts of ambition. When you truly have a goal in mind of what you want to achieve and break loose from the chains of self doubt, you're ready to move past failure.
