I’m not real comfortable with the word “fail.” Mainly because I believe that everything we do in life produces a result, and that what’s most important is what we do with the result.

Setting that aside for a moment, yesterday morning I started thinking about all of the major things I’ve attempted in my life. Or at least the things I’d labeled as “major.” And it occurred to me that in every one of those instances, if achieving the desired outcome was considered a success, they were all abject “failures.”

And in the midst of my reflection, the most amazing and wonderful thing happened: I started laughing. First, because of the fact that none of my major life events had worked out the way that I had originally planned. None of them! And I’m talking about seven or eight things that most of us would consider big deals. The absurdity of it just struck me as funny. And second, because I realized that the important thing was not necessarily the success or “failure” of the event. It was the learning that had taken place.

When I stopped laughing, I asked myself, “so why did it take me twenty-five years of trying and “failing” to get to the point where I can now laugh about past events and learn from them?” And the answer came back to me in the form of a Buddhist proverb:

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

There it is. Game-set-match. Check please. The answer? At the time I was going through the events I was not present enough to learn from the results. And my attachment to the outcome was too great to allow for clarity. But at 5:17 on a Tuesday morning in February, twenty-five years later, I got it.

And then the voice in my head said something even more profound:

“If you’re not failing, you’re not trying.”

Whatever you want to do in life, go for it! Get in there and mix it up. Produce some results. And if things don’t go exactly the way you planned, step back for a moment and reassess. Consider what you learned from your efforts. And then be grateful for the courage you showed in the attempt and move forward. Because the one thing I know for sure is that in the end, you and the world will be a better place for your efforts.

Carpe Diem