Some of your greatest moments will come after your greatest moments of despair. It is in this moment when you truly learn who you are. At this point you are alone, everything feels like it has left you…and you are left sitting there quietly, eyes looking into the mirror, searching into the portal of your soul.
This moment is beautiful. There is nothing wrong with it. Do not try to fix it. Every moment needs to be appreciated for what it is. This moment can tell you more about yourself that anything else. We learn who we are when our backs are up against the wall. We learn if we are a fighter, or if we carry around a white towel.
I find that I learn more about myself when I fail rather than when I succeed. Knowing why you are a success is nice, but diving deep into your failures as an individual will pay off significantly. I love looking at my failures, because then I can find my limits and create an action plan. I can constantly improve. I can grow.
Life is about trial and error. What I feel is missing from that statement is the fact that you have to take something that may be good and see how it can be transformed into something better. Do not be afraid to make yourself vulnerable. Absolute vulnerability is the only true courage.
When you express yourself for the world to see, you are on a platform for change. more importantly, if you declare to the world that you are going to be something or be something, you are fully accountable for your actions. There are no excuses after that point. I am out to play a big game in the world. I want my writing and the messages that have inspired me to touch the lives of people around the world. This is not a hollow claim. I really believe in this…to the point where I have dedicated my life to this purpose.
I love the photo that says what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail. While it is a great quote, I believe it should read along the lines of what would you do if failure didn’t matter. Failure only matters as much as you make of it. The more you fail at something, the closer you get to your ultimate goal. I always cite this, but Edison failed near 10,000 times and said that he just was learning ways to not build a lightbulb.
Some try for years and years to get to where they are. Every day, every week, every month…and their dedication and perseverance continues. I am on this type of journey and will not stop till I get there.
Will you?
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project
Hi nicee reading your blog
I love this statement “to persevere when all we experience is telling us to give up”.
Failure, as Thomas Edison would tell you, is just one more way not to do things. When you are running out of ways to not do things, you’ll stumble across the ways to do them. The trick then, is to remember that you’ve not tried every possible way yet, even when you are in the depths of despair. It’s a real trick, that. It takes practice. Practice that you cannot get while living a wonderful life. It’s like we are somehow evolved to do this, to perservere when all we experience is telling us to give up. Necessity is the mother of invention. So I’m told. Desperation is a necessity that will not be easily sated. Life’s tenuous hold on this existence is much stronger than we would like to admit most days. If we could only remember that when the time comes that we need to.
I have lived through it to be a witness to it that there is something that transforms us when we go through the despair and come out the other side. What is failure really if you learn, grow, change and become more of yourself from the fall?
You hit the nail on the Head……Wisdom at it’s best:)
What an awesome post! I feel this way right now. Part of me wants to throw in the white towel and the other keeps walking forward with determination. I think inspirational people like you are what keep me going forward.
Very Inspiring. Good work.
We’re on the journey! 🙂
Bella and DiDi
Great post. Looking forward to reading more of your work.
Reblogged this on Pink Ninjabi and commented:
LOVE this post as this writer speaks of how I have been feeling these past few days, and how I crawled out of it somehow… Thank you Evan!
LOVE this post. This has got to be one of my faves so far as it resonates deeply with what I have been feeling. And I totally love Edison’s statement of when a reporter asked him, what did it feel to fail a thousand times, and he replied, “it was a thousand step process.” Love it!
Insightful post, I’ve been thinking a lot about this myself recently. When we reframe so-called failures and ask how we can become better people from them we find that we often grow more than we did just by applying ourselves to success. Powerful stuff.
Amen to this! Great post.
Reblogged this on whatsup23 and commented:
I’m the girl on fire! 🙂
Such wisdom Evan!! Thank you for your always inspirational post.
Very true… I am one to get a little flustered when I mess up, but it is like come on, I am human. Who doesn’t make a mistake? Oh wait, the people who don’t make mistakes are the ones who never try anything new… And that’s just not fun.
You got me now !
The fire in my bones like jeremiah
It seem what happened to you the other day sparked some thing
God bless , your coming in and your going out.
For me right now it’s all about the (8mile)
Great post. A reminder to allow myself to be vulnerable and realise that its ok to be like this! Because we cant control everything.
Onward and forward focusing solely on what we want most from life, through thick and thin!
– Jeff Emmerson (Author of the Inspirational Story The Road to Myself: Dying to Live)
I can really relate to this post as I’ve spent my life searching, trying to improve myself whilst striving to understand what this life is actually about.
One of the most important things I’ve come to accept is that there is no failure, only learning experiences. This approach allows me to turn negative into positive, quickly most times (except when I resist and go into my suffering mode). It also reassures me there is a purpose for our being, that although we may not be able to see just yet, we are being guided toward.
Thanks for this post – it certainly is inspiring 🙂
Reblogged this on MyDestiny2011.
Reblogged this on MyDestiny2011.
Some of my favourite art I’ve done was in my lowest moments.
I hold that there is a maxim which explains much of human ape life: We all do what is needed to be done when the time comes to do it. Some of us fail, most of us do not. We, as a species, are the sum total of those that do not fail but do what is required when the time comes to do it. Heroes are not born, but are simply those that do not fail to do what is required by their own ethics when the time comes to do it. There is no more to it than this. Each of us finds that moment more than once in life. Each of us faces that moment in one way or another and walks away the victor. They are small victories in view of histories but they are victories. In each of our lives they might seem huge victories.. and they are. This is one of the rejuevenating processes of life… to be able to say “I survived that” and know that it feels good every time that you remember it. Of such things sonnets and song were written, legends made. Feel no shame that you have no song, but know you should have.
very good
“Some of your greatest moments will come after your greatest moments of despair.”
I have found this to be so true in my life. After about three days of despair or pain or suffering, not avoiding or resisting the feelings but allowing myself to feel the feelings to completion, abiding in the truth that there is a higher power, I emerge on the other side with new insight, new joy, and new expanded Life! Growth is sometimes very painful, but misery is optional! Resistance = Suffering; Allowing, Accepting and Trusting = Expansion and Growth!
Reblogged this on The Wandering Mind.
never stop until you reach your goals 🙂 And some of the best goals and dreams come after moments of horrible hardships, indeed!
Reblogged this on Lifting My Spirits and commented:
I can relate. I love Evan’s blog.
I’ve been telling myself this everyday lately. I used to beat myself up whenever I would fail. But now I try to embrace my failures more because I know I’m much more closer to success. Thank you for this. Very well written.