No Such Thing As Failure

GentleJanet

I have always been a 'failure' in all new endeavors - relationships, weight-loss, my writing career and most recently, my spiritual path. Well, today I learned from my new Buddhist studies that I am ever-changing, not ever-failing. I have been reading about the lessons of Buddha, Yoga, meditation and Zen living. Today, however, I learned something. When the day does not go as planned, I do not beat myself up about the choices I made. A day of sleeping in or skipping a meditation session does not mean I have failed and must start all over or give up, completely. My spirit is changing and some days may be more challenging than others. One key is to make a decision for each day and mindfully do certain things in a way that compliments that decision. My analogy is life as a story and every day is a fresh page.

Wisdom23

Nice way of seeing things. Don't forget about perception that you percieve yourself to have failed when in actual fact there may be many things that you succeeded in that you over looked. You must have had fun along the way surely. These so called failures may even lead you to a great success one day. If you say you have failed you may be admitting defeat. If you still feel abit unsatisfied try acepting what, who and where you are now a sense of gratitude can work wonders.

Hope this is what youe were after.

RebeccaS

Have you read You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L Hay? She has basically the same philosophy. It's one of my favourite books, you might like it

Beej

Heh. I fail at everything, too. I'm okay with it though, because of what you mention above, @GentleJanet. New day. New page. Tableau Rasa! But then there's this: if one sets out to fail, and suceeds, what did one really do?

Dakini

GentleJanet said:

I have always been a 'failure' in all new endeavors - relationships, weight-loss, my writing career and most recently, my spiritual path. Well, today I learned from my new Buddhist studies that I am ever-changing, not ever-failing. I have been reading about the lessons of Buddha, Yoga, meditation and Zen living. Today, however, I learned something. When the day does not go as planned, I do not beat myself up about the choices I made. A day of sleeping in or skipping a meditation session does not mean I have failed and must start all over or give up, completely. My spirit is changing and some days may be more challenging than others. One key is to make a decision for each day and mindfully do certain things in a way that compliments that decision. My analogy is life as a story and every day is a fresh page.

You're not a failure. You're not a success. You're not a fixed, written-in-stone collection of personality traits. You're a constantly learning, ever-evolving, tranformational being. Enjoy the journey and the eternal process of becoming.