Contemplating Failure

In the social circles and society that I have grown up in failure has rarely been viewed in a positive light. In college some of my professors would tell of successful business men who had first gone bankrupt, failed at their first few companies before going on to be successful. This morning my Pastor shared a message and one of the points in the sermon was on contemplation. Contemplation is defined as – the action of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time: deep reflective thought: the state of being thought about or planned. It is possible to go through life working, being with family, and going about our routine without having to sit and contemplate about very many things. Failure is defined as – lack of success: the omission of expected or required action: the action or state of not functioning. In life there are times when the outcome will not go as expected. Continuing to try, continuing to work hard, and not giving up are necessary when a person goes through situations like this.

I have experienced times of failure in my life, one occurred about a year ago when I failed out of grad school, at the time, work was busy, I was traveling, and the amount of time that I should have dedicated to studying fell short. This failure allowed me to refocus on what I was trying to accomplish with my time, how I wanted my life and career to go, and reconsidered whether grad school was even something I wanted to pursue. There was the cost of the classes that I had to fight through and consider, and still working on paying. A second recent failure in my life was about a week ago, I had been making payments on a piece of property outside Tulsa, I would go spend time on the weekends there to relax and get away from the chaos of life, there I would find peace and rest. After working through my finances I resolved that my budget did not cover the cost of those payments on the property, I had to walk away from the contract and lost what I had put into the land over the last year.

Life has many lessons for a person to learn, if he or she will stop and contemplate what has happened and how they got to the place they are at. The challenge in my life is separating the failures from who I am, I am still a hard worker, disciplined, skilled, and a good son of my parents and of God my heavenly father. There are costs that must be paid in the lesson of failures, but they do not define a person. To move on from failure, a person needs to reflect on their successes, their accomplishments, on the things they have done well and the family and friends who are beside them in the good and the bad.

Today, wherever you find yourself, remember what it is that defines you, and what does not. Remember the lessons that can be learned, and fight against repeating the failures you have had in the past. Trust God in the process, and work to make your future brighter and stronger.