Original Air Date: June 14, 2021

Failure.
A complete sentence.

Is it a teacher
Or a jailer?

Is it a beginning
Or does it end there?

Where do you place your next step
When the ground beneath you begins to erupt?

Maybe if there was something to grasp,
If it wasn’t so abrupt.
Perhaps if no one was watching,
Not even me seeing me.

Then this…
Failure
Would be easier to swallow.

If self-criticism were a competition,
I’d be a tough act to follow.

Perfection.
Maybe it can serve as my protection.
From any and all
Ridicule
And rejection

And failure.

There is fog on the glass of my reflection.
I find the courage to wipe it,

I shine back clearer.

I need to reexamine my definition.

A life without failure
Actually sounds
Kind of boring.

Where would be the discovery?
The intrigue?
The lessons learned from walking through the fire
And getting just a bit burnt.

Realizing the nightmare scenes
Are actually just branches of trees
Scratching at my window.

Scary shadows revealed to be nothing.

But it’s the confronting.
The facing.
The tasting the fear on your tongue
And rather than deciding to run...

Moving forward.
Moving toward that which I find to be frightening.

Failure.

It can be a beautiful teacher.

Not gentle.
But honest.

Failure.

Unexpected gifts found within if I’m willing to persist.

To insist:

I know. I know.
There is danger waiting.
But I’d rather lose it all
Than die knowing
I never even tried.

I had all of these ideas
And just kept them shut inside.

We get to decide when failure is an ending.
A complete sentence.

A teacher or
A jailer.

And when failure
Is actually the greatest of all treasures.

P.S. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode: ‘The Unexpected Gifts Of Failure.’

tomearl.me/giftsof