Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." -JK Rowling (from her speech The Fringe Benefits of Failure)
{isn't she brilliant? read her full speech here}
Seriously. Why are so people afraid to fail if our greatest blessings come after the trial?
I love how she talks about when she reached rock bottom and it became the foundation on which she built her life. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain. She then wrote the Harry Potter series and is a billionaire author.
If we lived every day as if we had nothing to lose and everything to gain, imagine the possibilities!
My New Years resolution is to do just that. A little bit at a time, because it is scary to put yourself out on a limb and try your very best.
But without pushing yourself there is no progression.
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