Failure is a collectible
Grab as much of it as you can
I’ve really wanted to write about ‘radical acceptance’ for a long time. It’s an idea I’ve revisited over and over again, but I still can’t find the words to capture my feelings on the topic. I even have a title for the someday post ‘We Don’t All Get the Same Stuff’. Eventually, I’ll write that post. But, contemplating the word acceptance did draw me to this version of the serenity prayer.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
When I read this prayer I anchor on three words: serenity, courage, and wisdom. Below you’ll see a little more information on these words: (these definitions were provided by Oxford Languages and Google.)
Serenity - the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.
Courage - the ability to do something that frightens one.
Wisdom - the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.
As I contemplated the relationship between these words as they were used in this prayer I started thinking; are they connected, how are they connected, is there an order, is it sequential, were they used this way intentionally? Right now, I feel serenity and wisdom are qualities, things we possess. Courage though, is an act, it is only through courage that we gain serenity and wisdom.
This is a story that illustrates how I feel about serenity, courage, and wisdom.
We are all on the road called uncertainty. This road is littered with infinite pieces of tiny pebbles called failure. As we walk this road we are afforded the option to pick up these pieces of failure and place them in our satchels. There is no mandate regarding whether or not we collect any pebbles. They can feel uncomfortable and heavy, so why would we? Because we’re curious creatures and that curiosity encourages us to experiment.
Courage is the act of obliging your curiosity, experimenting and accepting failure when it happens. As we collect these failures we notice no difference, nothing positive anyway, just sore shoulders from the weight that we now lug in our satchels.
While we walk the road of uncertainty, something changes. It’s magical really, the satchels we carry extract serenity and wisdom from our failure. This new element leaves our satchel and molds to our persons and as it bonds with us the weight of our satchel diminishes and the road seems more pleasant.
Our new garments change the way we see the road and the pebbles. We no longer walk a dreary path of confusion and apprehension. We see the road as a path of opportunity, so we experiment and accept the consequences. We no longer sparingly collect pebbles along the way, our serenity increases our strength. We no longer only see the pebble, we see how the pebble will help us, our wisdom increases our foresight.
Now our serenity and wisdom power our courage so we experiment more and we collect more pebbles. This makes us more than we were. But the cycle doesn’t start until you collect the first pebble.
Remember failure is inevitable, like gravity. It isn’t a thing to fear or dislike. It just is.
Let me know in the comments!
What experiment have you pondered for a long time? Does thinking about failure as a collectible increase your courage?
Can you think of a past failure that has improved your serenity and your wisdom?
I don't know if I'm any wiser. On the other hand, I've learned a lot from the pain of these failures.
I feel that you can only really learn when you burn yourself.
Failure is valuable if you do four things with it: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it