01 April 2006

Can you?

This post is one that i sat up all night thinking about... i woke up in the middle of the night feeling very fluey and very sick - so i sat in the dark trying to get comfortable and drug myself better.. but as some of you know - when i am well medicated my mind wonders to some scary places.. hahaha

Can you live with failure and pain and still feel that you are valuable.. whether its your failure or the failure of a loved one..

A little story about myself - when i was 19 i was watching a movie with someone very close to me and i told them - "someday, i am going to go to Hollywood - i am going to stand under that Hollywood sign" and the person laughed at me... 7 years later - i did exactly that - but the experience was such an anti-climax because my whole purpose for doing it then was to prove that i would, and not because it was a desire for so many years.

What has that got to do with failure.. the need to prove this person wrong drove a wedge between us and we are no longer friends.. i asked myself so many times - was that really an accomplishment then?

As i sit in America tonight and feel like when i look back on my life all the places i have travelled to every year since i was 18.. i have never felt more sane, more alive and more accomplished than i do right this minute. Not because of having done something - but having matured somewhat i feel that i finally know the difference between success and failure..

I have lived a life full of this sense of unfolding magic and have often felt guided by something larger than myself sometimes thru and often in spite of failures and mistakes. We cannot live fully and avoid failure. So to try and avoid the paralysis and pain of failure, mistakes and shame, we narrow our lives to those things we already know and live in denial and regret.

So celebrate life - if you fail (and we all do) fail forward ...

Mum this is for you - for teaching me through your life of love and sacrifice what true success, true life and true love is...