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Today's
Meditation:
I
have this image in my mind of someone who has always been
hard on him or herself for failure reaching heaven at the
end of life. "What am I doing here?" this
person might ask St. Peter. "I shouldn't be
here-- my life was filled with failure after failure."
St.
Peter shrugs. "So what?" he asks.
And
that's it. The whole story. Because I think that
says it all-- so what? We aren't here on this planet to
be perfect, and failure is an inherent part of each one of
us. So what?
Oprah's
perspective is fairly common and quite refreshing.
Thinking about "failure" is just a way for us to
keep ourselves down, to keep ourselves from reaching our
potential and focusing on the possible. When we see
the results of our actions as learning rather than success
or failure, then we're casting off the old way of looking at
things that has done very little to help people grow.
We
must embrace a new way of seeing the world and our selves if
we're to get the most out of the many valuable and beautiful
lessons that life gives to us. Success and failure are
old paradigms that serve almost no one except those who
already are in power, and it helps them only to hold on to
their power when they can assign such a label to what we've
done.
Learn
from your experiences-- don't label them.
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