[november 14th, 2006]

It is in the ability to fail oneself that a person can truly find strength. In that failure are pieces of ourselves, spices of our personality, our emotions, our energies, and our motives, and when it confronts us we can be overwhelmed. When faced with this turbulent kaleidoscope of ourselves, the ability to overcome the discomfort, the doubt, the defense we’ve spent years building to achieve a superficial infallibility, to allow ourselves to admit who we are and why we fail, can be the single greatest step in gaining strength. And this strength does not render us ‘untouchable’ or ‘unbreakable’, the reality is quite the opposite. To gain that strength of person is to leave one defenseless, open, even happy, adjectives society would associate with what is seen as the negative quality of vulnerability. Yet to fail is to learn and in learning we build strength. Like any lesson, it takes time and effort and the commitment to let this new knowledge in and become part of what shapes us. Without failure, we fail to learn about who we are, fail to recognize, address, and understand what it is that makes us ‘us’.