The Road to Success is paved with Failures.

I was talking with a friend last night about my latest dream of moving to Brooklyn, NY. I said, "you know, I'd like to go up there and try. If I fail, I have friends and family who will still love me". My friend then mentioned how he had been thinking about failure during the last week. "You know," he said, "there's not much I've failed at in my life, that I've gotten back up and tried again". He felt bad about this. You should also know, my friend has a great job and I consider him to be an amazing person. I agreed, though. I also feel, that in my short life I've set myself up to succeed. If I fail, I move on to something I can accomplish. I've mastered taking the "safe" way out.

I'm starting to think that failure is not failure at all, but the path to success. I don't mean the typical definition of success. What if success meant reaching your potential, by investing in the gifts granted to you from birth, rather than burying them? Maybe through failure you come closer to understanding what those gifts are? Perhaps, that is why there is so much to learn from our elders? They have time and experience under their belts, which nurtures wisdom.

Lately, I wonder, how could fail more? I also wonder, where am I burying my head in the sand? Where can I take a risk?

Realize, I don't mean life threatening stuff. I mean the everyday risks... Speaking up for something I care for when no one else will, confessing, approaching friends about hard to bring up topics, dreaming about the future, traveling, talking to someone I don't know, trying a new hobby, writing a blog, and the list could go on.

When have I let fear of failure prevent me from speaking, acting, doing, making, traveling, loving, listening, trying, investing, jumping?

You, Me and Everyone In Between have a choice.

I end with a cliche.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

...Robert Frost