I Wish “Failure” Came with Footnotes

Starting this afternoon, I started wondering if the results were in.  Every few minutes I’d check my email and check facebook.  Nope.  Nothing yet.  Finally, I got the email, I followed the link.  I read the list once, then twice.  May be I missed it.  I read it again.  Nope, didn’t miss it.  I wasn’t one of the scholarship recipients.  Hmmm.

Several weeks ago, I was following several bloggers/publishers/promoters/writers who were promoting Marie Forleo’s B-school.  If you’ve never watched MarieTV, she is awesome and amazing.  Her manner, her style, her message, are all spot on.

So the B-school promotion was frankly awesome and cool.  I watched the promo videos, gleaned all the information I could from them, and dreamed of attending.  Then with the last promotion, I saw that there was a possibility for a scholarship.  A Scholarship!!!  Woo Hoo!  May be there’s a chance…may be? But the deadline was only days (4) away.

The only problem was that the scholarship submission was to be in the form of a 90 second video…one that was catchy and creative.  Hmm.   So I spend a couple days thinking about how I would create such a video.  What I would say?  What wouldn’t I say?  I spent several nights, sleepless, or at least restless, waking to these questions.

So finally, on Monday morning, 3 a.m. I awoke with the clear message…”Life is easy when you live it the hard way, but hard when you live it the easy way.”  I had been worrying about how to do the video (that was now due by 3 p.m. that day) and how the rewards could change my life (or so I thought).  But, why?  Why was I choosing the hard way?  Why was I choosing this work….this unknown?  Well, the answer to me was as obvious as the question.  The easy way doesn’t make me happy.  To settle for what I have and where I am, does not make me happy.  So, I will challenge myself and try to do what is “hard”.

It took me hours…almost to the 3 p.m. deadline to get the video made and submitted.  I wrote a script, and rewrote, and rewrote.

Let me cut to the chase here and let you know that my video was not selected for a scholarship, it (I) was a “failure”.——-HARDLY!

I have to admit that I was disappointed.  When I saw the opportunity to win a scholarship, I felt like the message was meant for me.  When I decided to take the “hard road”, I knew that it was the path that I should take.  I was convinced that B-School and it’s scholarship would take me from where I am to were I believe, and see in my mind, that I’m destined to be.  But it didn’t.

I asked myself tonight, “Was it your best effort?”  And the answer first came back that NO, it wasn’t.  But do you know what?  In reality, yes…Yes it was.  I have never made a video before.  I have never filmed myself on a video before.  And, I have never faced the fact that the camera on my laptop wasn’t working so I had to try to look at the camera on my ipad.  Do you know how hard it is to not look at the screen where you are and look at the side edge where the camera is?  So given all the things that I’d never done before, I did the best that I could, and I learned.

Was I a failure?  Not really.  I learned and the act of engaging in the process helped me grow.  Do I wish that I knew what I should have or could have done differently? Of course!  These “footnotes” are the connections that tie us to paths we might hope to take, but don’t yet know how.  Those who have come before.

But I also have to add that it is the speed bumps, the ditches, and the land mines like this that often derail us from our paths.  I know it just can’t be me!  When adversity hits, when that thing that you imagined was a sure fire, positive, absolute…can’t miss win that would catapult you to your dream….when it’s a dud….when it miss fires or fails to hit its mark, well, it makes me wonder if the path was meant to be.  Is the universe trying to tell me something?

I don’t know.  I don’t really know the answer to that.  But I do know that what I imagined would “save me” this year…won’t.  A scholarship was my path to B-School.  Without it, I’ll wait until next year, or I’ll try to find the information on my own.

I’m grateful for the things that I learned in the process.  I’m grateful that I took the hard way and learned something in the process.  I’m grateful that I failed, because at least I know that i tried.  I’m grateful that I still have a dream that I can hold to tackle again tomorrow.

What’s your dream?  What’s keeping you from going after it?  If it’s failure, get over it.  Failure doesn’t always come with footnotes, or neon signs, sometimes the lessons we learn are subtle, but in the end, well worth the cost.  Ultimately, it’s what will lead you to success.