What have you done: Five

Finally, when I look back on my life and wonder “what have I done?”  I want to be the one who failed a LOT. Because I believe the only way that a person truly learns is by failing. What is the saying? Didn’t Edison try and fail thousands of times before he found what worked for the light bulb.

If you have never failed then you have never really tried to do anything.

Now there is a fine line here that needs to be defined. I don’t want to look back on my life as a failure, I want to look back on my life to see that I tried, I worked, I experimented, and I failed a LOT more than I succeeded.

A wise old fisherman was working on a dock that was too new for the boat he was mooring there. While he fixed his nets on his faded skiff he could see the invasion of modernity on his beloved shore in the form of hotels, fenced off beaches, and these new docks. One of these new-wealth 20-something’s came up to him at the end of the dock and watched him work for a while. Hoping to make conversation he asked the fisherman about the depth of the water at the end of the dock; “How many have you seen fall in and drown?” he asked. The fisherman squinted in the sun and his eyes seemed to disappear in the wrinkles on his face as he answered, “No one who falls in drowns,” he answers. “It’s just them that don’t get up again that drown.”

I have failed a lot in my life. Some of those times it caused permanent damage and I had to totally abandon whatever. MOST times I learned from that fall and I got up again a little smarter about how NOT to fall next time.

Edison didn’t fail thousands of times, he learned about thousands of ways that didn’t work. That is how I want to live my life. Because, you see, the alternative is to live your life in a protected shell of mediocrity and security. When you live that way and look back on your life you will wonder why you didn’t try more. You will wonder why this God-given great life was boring and hum-drum and not the exciting ride you wished it could be.

At the end of my life when you ask me what I have done, I want to answer “I have failed but gotten back up again. I tried, experimented, and stretched for things beyond my reach only to fall spectacularly. I’ve traveled, I’ve seen, I’ve experienced and I’ve lived!”

Will you be able to say the same?