Fail up

These words came to mind when sharing with a friend some of the feelings I have about my recent break up.  I immediately did a google image search because I wanted to blog about this idea with a visual.  The visual I got was unexpected.  It was a photo of Tavis Smiley, my black brain crush, (Steven Mansfield is my white/Cherokee brain crush) on the cover of his book entitled "Fail Up".  Amazon search, followed by reading of chapters 1 and 6, followed by listening to Dr. King's Drum Major sermon, followed by decision.

I've decided that I must act the way that I think vs. the way that I see.  I see things in broad panoramic images, but I break ideas and concepts down to the bottom line very quickly.  When I teach and advise, I'm always telling my student or confidant to take apart ideas in chunks and build from the most basic all the way up, in essence, deconstruct-construct.  I thought I blogged about that concept once before, but am unable to find it.

Nevertheless, knowing that I tend to get bogged down, I must begin to take my own advice and take things a little at a time.  Primarily, I am allowing myself to focus on only two dreams at a time, plan only two days at a time and accomplish a minimum of two tasks laid out for myself on any given day.  For now, 2 is my magic number.  When I master this practice I can and certainly hope to be able to plan months in advance and juggle many things at once, all while moving forward, wiser and better than I was before.

I have learned that failure is absolutely necessary for success.  And I have even begun to believe that no matter how dedicated or driven one is, no matter how much time one has on this earth, we all will leave this earth as failures, having left something undone, undeveloped, incomplete.  Fatalistic?  Kind of, but not quite, because I believe that the predetermined end is ALWAYS good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.  That in and of itself is the core of failing up, I think. You must fail better than the last time, the goal being to maximize the journey, not simply to reach the destination.  For whatever point you reach, if it is higher than the point where you fell, you have succeeded.