The art of Failing Successfully

It often crosses my mind as I sit at the edge of what seems to be the end of all roads, to build a bridge.

The question that follows is- do I know how to build the bridge?

Suppose, I skip this question and go ahead with the limited knowledge that I have gathered from books and films, and build the bridge. And what if it collapses? At that very moment, I will have you all pointing fingers at me and yelling "You are a failure!", quite easily overlooking the fact that I was the one who at least tried. But, yes I can understand your anger. As human beings, we are never trained to see failures. Because we don't want to see what we 'can't' do. Since birth we are taught things that we can do. No one has ever trained us to do the impossible. Impossible just becomes possible by fluke and then becomes a trend. Isn't it?

Take for instance- cripples. Who thought cripples could walk. But perhaps, back in time, some cripple had dared to build the bridge- to make other cripples walk. With no knowledge of how to do it, he failed, got yelled at but tried again and again while getting yelled at. As time passed, as the yelling faded into a faint buzz, he succeeded. How? Not by trying again and again but while giving up. The moment the cripple gave up and hated falling, he took support of the lonely stick lying next to him and stood up. Watching him rise, suddenly the faint buzz turned into a loud applause. The scenario transformed. He had failed to build the bridge he thought of, but while taking support of that lonely stick, he landed up building another bridge, modifying his goal, that seemed a trifle to others but drastic to himself- He made cripples walk for sure but with a support!

The lonely stick became the sole support for cripples and evolved into prosthetic limbs. So, today when you see a cripple walk, he in fact is doing so by depending on something else. I might sound overtly negative, but my friends, I see it that way. What makes me different is I am training myself to see failures, because only then I will be able to try, and only while trying, I will pluck that precious string by 'fluke' and rise above all your yelling!

I am one of those few priests in the temple of failures who preach the oxymoron art of Failing Successfully!